Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25044
- --June 19 Montana (99 miles) - Four Corners, Wyoming, to Alzada, I A series of signs for Devil's Tower National Monument begins as soon as you cross into Wyoming. Billboards, posters and key chains are in every gas sta tion along Route 85, and tourism is booming with nearly 450,000 visitors com ing to Devil's Tower each summer. The Indian name for the rock monolith is Mata Tipi, "The Bears' Lodge." Naming a native sacred site "Devil's Tower" was one way for the government to undercut native spirituality as the coun try expanded and conquered the West. Today, this name adds to the tourist appeal. Quivers, who cares the Lakota claim to William F. Downes is be banned each Jun to the issue. This mo of the runners who su "All of this not need churches or s to pray in Iglons. IS sac tower, these hills that you are running across, they are all yours." Quivers says this to a mostly Indian audience, a good percentage of whom are devout Christians. Chief Red Cloud then gives a closing prayer over a loudspeaker. Afterwards, Quivers asks the group to assemble for another prayer at dawn for the last day of running. NBC and independent film crews will be there. -- - ---- June 20 - Alzada, MOlltana, to Bear Butte, South Dakota (89 miles) The last day transforms the race. How else could you explain the decision for team members to forgo the morning prayer? Instead, the best runners leave camp'si lently at 1AM and begin runn ' ing the final leg that closes the Hoop at Bear Butte, It's in stinctive, they run to win and they run 40 miles through the night before we catch up to them at 7 AM. They are visibly tired but silently triumphant. Whatever happens next, they ran through the night and that will always be theirs. The future is less certa in. Some will be able to leave the reservation while others will not. If the rumors are true, Russell will have to deal with the authorities at some point while Fred, who has earned a cross-cou ntry scholarship to Carthage College in Wisconsin, will have to decide whether to return to the reservation after college. For the rest, the work outlook is bleak. Many enlist in the US armed services as a way to get off the reservation. For now, though, Team La kota Oyate has finished three hours before anyone else, but no one gloats. The three teams form a gi ant circle on a hillside and a prayer is spoken in Lakota. A medicine man in blue jeans ends the prayer: "Mitakuye Oyasin." II