We’ve arrived at Keystone!
We headed over to Six Grandfathers (Mount Rushmore) to hike the short trail that snaked around the base of the mountain. I brought with me a print of a painting by artist Babe Hemlock. The painting depicts Six Grandfathers with carvings of prominent Native American leaders rather than U.S. presidents. The men in the painting are Red Jacket, Geronimo, Chief Joseph, and Sitting Bull (not 100% positive on the order, please correct me if you know!)
I had the privilege of meeting Babe and Carla Hemlock several times since I’m friends with one of their sons, Raohserahawi. Raohs is an incredibly talented total filmmaker, animator and storyteller. He worked on my thesis set as a sound recordist / swing grip and I helped him on camera for his thesis. We both graduated from the film program at the college of Visual & Performing arts at SU in 2019.
Raoh’s parents are not only prominent & successful Mohawk artists, working with a range of media and having work shown in galleries and shows both in the U.S. and Canada, they also did instrumental activist work during the Oka Crisis of 1990. Often referred to as ‘90′, this rebellion was a result of the town of Oka’s attempts to expand a golf course on Mohawk land. Mohawks defended their land by protesting and barricading access to the area.
Babe and Carla have a store called Calico Cottage in Kahnawake, Canada where they sell their art and other handmade items. It’s where we got our masks from and my little bag! Please give them your business if you are ever in the area!
(from top to bottom: me with the print, me & Raohs on graduation day, Six Grandfathers before it was known as Mount Rushmore, Sam & I with our masks & my bag)
Keystone, the Black Hills forest and Six Grandfathers (Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe) are very significant areas to Cheyenne & Sioux Native Americans. The bluff where the presidents faces are carved represented six directions, North, South, East, West, Above & Below. The name Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe came from Nicolas Black Elk, a Lakota (Sioux) medicine man, who gave the mountain the name after he experienced a vision.
This area has a long history of conflict between indigenous people and white European-Americans that colonized the area and carved the faces of the presidents into this culturally & religiously significant mountain. The remnants of these struggles are still everywhere here today. For example, the town we are currently staying in, Custer, is named after Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer. Custer killed over a hundred Cheyenne people with the 7th Cavalry while establishing Fort Supply, before triggering a gold rush that brought even more European-American settlers to the area, causing more violence and pushing Indigenous people to reservations.
I think by fully reckoning with our history & acknowledging the pain of the past, we can not only decolonize but re-indigenize many aspects of our society, work towards healing and hopefully give indigenous communities more of the respect that they deserve - maria
