Lakota artist smudges the former gold mine inside the Black Hills

When Lakota artist Marty Two Bulls Jr. Look at the South Dakota Black Hills, not only does it see its natural beauty. He also sees a scar cut in the heart of the universe.

The mountain range is essential for the history of origin of several tribal nations, including its own, and has become an international symbol of the continued struggle for the indigenous rights of the Earth and the destruction of sacred places. In Lakota, Mount Rushmore is the most visible scar in the mountains. The old golden mine below is another, and this is what motivated two oxen to use his performance art to clean it.

“Feel” Tard Back “, and it means many different things for different people,” he said, referring to the indigenous movement to restore tribal self -determination through the property and management of their land. “It was interesting to try to rethink some of these conversations about land management and rights and treaties.”

When the green pines at the top meet the blue sky above, it creates the perception of a black scheme, which is why people Lakota, Dakota and Nakota are called “spa”, which means “black ridge”. For them, this is where its creation began.

Today, Homestake’s old Golden Mine, a 300 -kilometer (480 -kilometer) tunnel system cut in the mountains, houses the Sanford underground research installation, where scientists study particle physics and dark matter. The deep granite -embedded axes are ideal for investigating the secrets of stars.

As an artist at the surfing residence last year, two oxen felt a connection with their depths, but a tremendous sense of loss when he ventured to the mine.

“I witnessed the desecration that Homestake made every day. He was disgraining,” he said. And he let him ask, “How do you recover from a desecration or a crime?”

Two oxen also respected the work done by some of the best minds in the world within the Black Hills, and wanted to find a way to prove them that this place was important long before their value was measured in gold or scientific research. He decided that the best solution was also the simplest: Smudge.

Smoking is the act of cleaning, spiritually and physically, burning plants such as the wise, cedar or sweet, and sending and wrapping himself or a space in smoke. It has been a common practice throughout the Indian country for generations. Last week, using sage given by native people as close as Pine Ridge Indian Reserve and as far as the West Coast, two oxen burned several beams, each representing the prayers of the community that gave it.

For an hour, he burned the bundles in a small stove at the entrance to the old mine, causing the flames with eagle feathers to remove the place that their people venerate like the center of the cosmos.

The mine sensors almost a kilometer underground detected the smoke, said a surf spokesman.

“To see how this was combined, it floated me,” said Rylan Sprague, a botanist and member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe chairing the surfing cultural advisory committee. “Leave an artist to take something that looks so regular and turning it into a totally different thing.”

Two oxen said that Western science is often overlooked or understands the indigenous ways of thinking about the world and our origins, and that he wants his art project, called Azilya, the word lakota to make the merger, a way to find the two. An exhibition of his art since his time on Surf exploring this concept at present is at the South Dakota Mines and Technology School.

Several researchers and members of the surf staff saw that two bulls dropped the mine. Sprague said that he could see in the look of his face that surfing employees attended the reverence that two bulls and their community have for the place where they work.

The room was largely calm, as two oxen sent smoke and prayers to a mile under the surface of the earth.

“It’s not a place I think they think as a sacred place. It’s a job,” said two Bulls. “I hope this happens. This is my intention.”