And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: Pat Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 'SPIRITUAL LANDSCAPE' Expansion of Medicine Wheel site suggested By MICHAEL MILSTEIN Gazette Wyoming Bureau LOVELL, Wyo. - A new study of traditional Native American use of the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn Mountains concludes that for American Indians, the site's cultural values extend far beyond the ancient stone structure to envelop the entire "spiritual landscape" of Medicine Mountain. The study, in the form of a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, recommends expanding the current 110-acre National Historic Landmark to 15,230 acres of the Bighorn National Forest. The increased acreage would take in many associated archaeological sites such as traditional campsites, trails and medicinal plant gathering sites. "The Medicine Wheel itself is not the main event up there, the main event is the landscape if you're a Native American," said archaeologist Fred Chapman of the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office and an author of the nomination. "There's nothing else really like this in the West in terms of a concentration of archaeological sites and continuing traditional uses." Expanding the boundaries of the National Historic Landmark would recognize the importance of those sites without imposing any restrictions on land use not already spelled out in a Historic Preservation Plan signed by state, local, federal and tribal groups in 1996, Chapman said. But the proposed boundary expansion is already generating criticism in Lovell, where residents fear it will limit their access to national forest lands long used for grazing, logging and recreation. "I think it's a crime against everyone who lives in the area to try to set aside 15,000 acres for the Medicine Wheel when we've gotten along with 100-plus acres for all this time," said Cal Taggart, who while mayor of Lovell in the late 1960s pushed for designation of the original 110-acre National Historic Landmark including the Medicine Wheel. "They're distorting what this site is all about by saying it's just a sacred site for the Indians," he said. "I don't care if the Indians pray up there or anyone prays up there, but I don't think it ought to be set aside for any group, whether it's Mormons or Baptists or Lutherans or anything else." Although the origin of the Medicine Wheel remains a mystery, many Native American tribes consider the wagon-wheel-shaped stone structure on a windswept ridge below the peak of Medicine Mountain to be a sacred site. Debate over proposals to improve the site with additional visitor facilities finally led to the 1996 Historic Preservation Plan, under which the Forest Service must consult local and state agencies and tribal groups on any plans for logging or other development within a 23,000-acre "viewshed" surrounding the Medicine Wheel. Wyoming Sawmills of Sheridan earlier this year sued the Forest Service, arguing that the Historic Preservation Plan has hampered logging opportunities on lands long designated for multiple use. The lawsuit is still pending. The Historic Preservation Plan also called for revising the Medicine Wheel's nomination to the National Register of Historic Sites based on a comprehensive survey of traditional Native American use of the site - called an "ethnographic survey." The results of that survey make up the bulk of the 100-page nomination completed by Chapman, anthropologist James Boggs of Missoula, Mont., and Robert G. York of the Northern Mariana Islands Museum of History and Culture in Saipan. They say that archaeological evidence and their many interviews with tribal members and local residents document longstanding Native American use of the Medicine Wheel and Medicine Mountain. The authors are now soliciting comments from the parties to the Historic Preservation Plan and the public and will then submit a final version of the nomination to the Forest Service. It will then be up to the Forest Service to submit the nomination to the National Park Service, which maintains the National Register of Historic Places. Copies of the document are available from the Forest Service, although the locations of archaeological sites and the names of Native Americans quoted are blacked out. A public meeting to discuss the nomination is scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight at the Big Horn County Annex in Lovell. "Contemporary traditional Native Americans generally venerate the Medicine Wheel because it embodies uniquely important and powerful spiritual principles that figure prominently in tribal, family and band-specific oral and ceremonial traditions," the nomination says. "To many Native Americans, Medicine Mountain as a whole constitutes a highly differentiated and complex sacred geography." While the Medicine Wheel itself is the most visible sign of ceremonial use of the area and is the prime attraction for the 15,000 or so tourists who visit annually, its cultural significance extends over a far broader area, the document says. "Most knowledgeable Indian traditional practitioners regard the Medicine Wheel as an essential but secondary component of a much larger spiritual landscape composed of the surrounding alpine forests and mountain peaks," it says. "In 1998, 841 Native Americans from 89 tribes conducted ceremonies at or near the Medicine Wheel." The team that completed the ethnographic survey originally had no idea how large the "spiritual landscape" would turn out to be, Boggs said. "We weren't aiming for any traditional acreage - we took different aspects of the landscape that emerged as important to the Native American people who came to the mountain and put those together," he said. "Everybody thought the Medicine Wheel was the focus, since that was what drew the attention of non-Indian people to begin with, but the Medicine Wheel is more like an altar to the mountain - it was a kind of symbol of the mountain's importance." He said the mountains have religious importance in the Bible, too. The Medicine Wheel was never intended as a static object or monument, but a kind of living structure that could be altered and supplemented over time, he said. Surrounding features such as springs on the south face of Medicine Mountain, trails that led longtime users of the Medicine Wheel up and down the mountain and campsites used by Native Americans while visiting the Wheel also deserve inclusion in the National Historic Landmark, he said. Such features are important not only for their archaeological value, but also for their modern role in continuing Native American traditions such as vision quests, he said. "None of the tribes we encountered, except perhaps the Northern Arapaho, maintains worship at Medicine Mountain as an aspect of what could in any sense be called its 'tribal religion,' " the ethnographic section of the nomination says. "Indeed, much of Native American religion is not what Euro-Americans call 'organized religion.' "Traditional cultural knowledge about Medicine Mountain is often transmitted within families, or from Elder to youngster, from teacher to student, rather than as part of organized bodies of knowledge distinctly representative of different tribes," the document says. http://www.billingsgazette.com/ http://wolfseeker.com http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb629759 http://www.sunlink.net/~wlfskr
