Badlands National Park in South Dakota is an American treasure. The largest concentration of such landscapes the world over, the United States is both blessed and cursed with them the further west you push into the interior 48.
You'll find their multi colored hoodoo canyons scattered all over the Midwest: the Dakotas, Kansas and even Nebraska near the Colorado border. They are also abundant in Dinosaur country like Colorado, Utah, Montana and Wyoming. The Badlands themselves were a battle ground for the Great Dinosaur War. Sabre Tooth Tiger fossils are still highly coveted items.
And for the Tribes that bordered these unique places, they were sacred ground. The Oglala Sioux still perform seasonal hunts on the lands, a tradition thats existed for unknown generations.
And for countless generations with a few exceptions, the Badlands National Park has been relatively safe for the natives. Wounded Knee being the terrible tragedy that should not be forgotten. Men do evil among each other but that was then, this is now. The land had been mostly peaceful for the Sioux in over a century.
That cannot be said about the Europeans. The 2024 bubonic plauge among Prairie Dogs in the National Park is another reminder for Europeans assorted history and relationship with these rugged lands.
Its no wonder Europeans gave these places names like Hells Half Acre for a reason. They, unlike the Native Americans, saw them as cursed places.
Imagine being a French trapper used to the Great Lakes, but you need to expand West to avoid the English and so you take a short cut through the Badlands to avoid the brutality of the plains Indians. Except now are you not only at the mercy of the elements but being caught on sacred grounds uninvited could be a very violent and painful lesson for your ilk. Now one mans religious safehaven is another mans cursed nightmare.
And I find this juxtaposition of cursed lands and sacred sites between the Native Americans and Europeans fascinating. Sites likes Devils Tower and the Badlands are sacred to the natives, but often feared by the whites. And the opposite is often true.
Sites like Yosemite and Crater Lake were cursed by local tribes, avoided like the plauge but are now among the top tourist destinations for non Native adventure seekers. So now when one thinks of the American spirit, they gravitate more towards Yosemite instead of the Badlands.
I feel the reason for this shift has to do with mass psychois. These cursed lands became safe grounds for the Europeans. Yellowstone was considered a hellscape by the Indians standards, a place to be avoided. But this lead to a oppertunity for the whites. These lands are rugged and dangerous, yet unsettled, so while working the land was hard, if you were hardy enough to survive, you often thrived. And that become the new sacred identity of a new nation.
Thank you. And feel free to comment on sacred sites and cursed lands in your area.
