Earthw7
All I know is the pipestone is sacred to us. I can not talk for other tribes. The pipestone is the blood of our people. We are taught not to abuse the stone. We don't use it is a bad way. We don't make earrings ect... out of it.I can't talk for people who do these things. We had heard that people believe that it is ok to use the pipestone because it has not been blessed but we prefer not to use it other than prayer.
The thing I notice is , these vague "traditions of other tribes" get used to justify ignoring the authority of tribal Elders who clearly say these traditions should not be commercialized .
So I am wondering .... Who exactly are these "other tribes" and what are their traditions ?
It is frequently pointed out the quarry was considered a neutral area , and no one was prevented from accessing it. However , tribes clearly did have traditional territories. In the 1600's the Dakota agreed to allow the Ojibway to hunt on the Eastern fringes of their territory in exchange for trade with the French . I would guess whatever tribes controlled the territory surrounding the quarry were primarily responsible for protecting this as a Sacred place and maintaining this as a neutral territory . In other words , other tribes were coming as guests , and i doubt any of these guest tribes who used this stone has a right to exploit it in a way one of the original host tribes feels is wrong .
I don't know much , but from what I can learn the tribes that may have occupied this area in the past 500 years aren't that many .
In the 1600's the Chippewa lived mainly in the area of SE Michigan .
The Cheyenne are known to have lived along the Minnesota river in the 1600's .
The Dakota are known to have lived in the Mille Lacs Lake area of Central Minnesota in the 1600's and this was said to be the Eastern Fringes of their territory .
The Otto , and Iowa lived mainly in Southern Iowa .
The Omaha lived in central Nebraska , the Sauk & Fox lived in central Wisconsin
The Winnabago lived in the Green Bay area .
According to their own tribal webpage the Mandan lived in Southwestern Minnesota , but are thought to have moved to North Dakota about 900 AD .
The Hidatsa were more nomadic than the Mandan but they left central Minnesota and joined the Mandan about 1600 .
Have I left any out ?
Of the tribes that commonly used the MN Pipestone for Prayerful purposes , which ones don't have a substantial number of Elders and traditionalists who find it offensive to sell this stone or sell important cultural items such as Sacred Pipes to strangers ?
When people say "some tribes don't have a problem with marketing these items" , do they really mean some individuals don't mind marketing these items , and people from tribes that don't believe the stone is Sacred, don't raise any objections ?
This stone and these Pipes ARE being marketed as Sacred . Even the "Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemakers ", who say Pipes aren't Sacred until Blessed , manage to find a way to advertise that they ARE selling something Sacred , just through the name of their group .
If one tribe doesn't believe the stone is Sacred , or that Pipes are Sacred, do people from that tribe have a right to market the Sacred traditions of another tribe?
I see the National Park Service says this quarry was used by many tribes and so the area did not belong to any tribe in particular . This idea that the quarry belonged to all tribes very conveniantly places it within the traditional jurisdiction of no tribe or tribal tradition . Which sets it up so the NPS gets to manage the quarries because supposedly there is so much intertribal disagreement , and the quarry doesn't belong to any particular group .
This looks like one more example of a repeating pattern of colonization . Non native people expect to have access to the cultural resources which belong to Native communities and future generations , but these non native people don't want to have to respect the authority of the leaders within these cultures who have the knowledge to protect and maintain these cultures . So on one hand they play down the authority of these traditional leaders , and on the other hand they find Native people who will serve non native desires, and set them up as authorities .
In the cached link in reply 15 , it sounds like people tried to make a plan so the economy of the area could be gradually restructured . They didn't want to put people out of work . But for some reason it sounds like this was resisited . As the people making these Pipes claim they barely manage to cover their living expenses, I have to wonder why .
Every tribe has a few people who think commercializing the culture is OK , but I don't see how anyones culture can survive if the people who want to make money are the ones who decide what should be commercialized and what shouldn't be . It needs to be the Elders and traditional people who don't have finacle intrests to protect, who define the basic policies on how to best to maintain the health of the culture . Not the people making money from this . Not the NPS .
