And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Wild horses given sacred welcome
http://www.argusleader.com/news/Mondayfeature.shtml
By TERRY WOSTER Argus Leader Staff
published: 7/19/99

INTERIOR -- Badlands rancher Alan Amiotte pushed back his black,
broad-brimmed hat and squinted at the crowd gathered Sunday to welcome wild
mustangs to his land.

He cocked his head, pondering the notion that he might be hosting a future
tourist attraction with the 90 or so wild horses brought to his ranch from
New Mexico.

"I didn't have any idea if people would show up today," Amiotte said. "I
guess if they'll come out for a blessing ceremony, maybe other people would
drive out here to see the horses someday."

More than 80 people did travel to Amiotte's ranch to be part of the
welcoming ceremony for the horses, the last of a herd that once numbered
1,500 and was slowly starving to death on the White Sands Missile Range.

The International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros leased
about 5,000 acres of Amiotte's land and arranged to have the remaining
animals trucked to the site in late May.

Amiotte's ranch is on the northern edge of the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation, just south of Badlands National Park.

Sunday's ceremony was called a blessing service, but Lakota medicine man
Richard Moves Camp said it was really a new beginning.

"We're welcoming these horses back to sacred land," he said.

The mustang project is aimed at giving the animals a place where they can
run free, says Karen Sussman, president of the mustang society.

"It's a chance for a group of magnificent animals to live as they once did,
managed by people who honor them," she said before Sunday's ceremony.

But her group, which raises most of its funds through membership dues, also
has a long-range plan to develop a National Wild Horse and Burro Heritage
Center on the site of Sunday's ceremony.

The range would become a model management program for wild horses, and the
center would be what Sussman calls an eco-tourism site, where people from
all over the world can view wild horses in a natural environment.

A feasibility study of the plan would include both assets and liabilities.

The site itself is remote, a couple of miles of two-track trail cross the
rugged prairie from Highway 44. Interior is the nearest town, and it isn't
a huge tourist stop.

But the canyon rim offers a view to match any in the nearby Badlands park.
Just a few yards from where a cedar-branch shade was erected for Sunday's
crowd, the land falls sharply 300 feet or more.

At the bottom of the cliff, a valley reaches at least four miles to another
sheer cliff face. The canyon floor itself is a maze of tall-grass pastures,
dense stands of shade trees and deep, eroded washouts.

And while Interior may not be a tourist draw, thousands of cars a day
stream through the Badlands on a highway that loops just two miles north of
the town, less than a dozen miles from the proposed mustang center.

Developed and marketed properly, the place would be a huge draw, said Bob
Gregg of Chamberlain.

Who would visit? Well, people like Gregg himself. He saw a newspaper blurb
about the ceremony.

"I couldn't stay away," the drug-store owner said. "Anyplace there are
horses, you'll probably find me. And I'm not the only one. A lot of people
are just drawn to these animals."

Moves Camp agreed, saying horses and humans have a centuries-old connection.

"Pretty soon the horse and the person who rides it become one," he said.
"Those of you who consider yourselves not part of the connection are
probably alien or something."

The center alone probably wouldn't draw huge crowds, said Blaine Little
Thunder, who lives in nearby Eagle Nest Community.

But if it were marketed with other reservation cultural and historical
attractions, such as the Wounded Knee massacre site and the Red Cloud
Heritage Center, the package could pull tourists from the interstate to the
lesser-traveled roads.

"Maybe it wouldn't be big at first, but it would mean some jobs and
activity," Little Thunder said. "There's a certain interest in Lakota
culture now. And everybody is attracted to horses. They used to be
everywhere. Now kids even out here hardly ever see one."

Red Cloud Heritage Center is just north of Pine Ridge. Its museum and
galleries of American Indian artwork from across the country, attract
between 50 and 100 cars a day, said Mark Fresquez, a gift shop manager.

"If something farther to the north got people off the main highway, it's
likely more would find their way down here," he said.

Whether the site becomes a national landmark or not, Amiotte clearly seems
to enjoy standing at the rim of the canyon pointing to the distant floor
where groups of two, three and five mustangs break from the cover of trees
for an easy trot across the grass.

"I kind of do like the idea that the horses wound up here," he said softly.
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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