There is hope!
Thesis: Sternfeld’s photo of Mount Rushmore is a glaring statement on the government’s reprehensible treatment of Native Americans.
The Black Hills of South Dakota where the Mount Rushmore monument stands is an area that is historically linked to several Native American tribes, including the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa, but most prominently the Lakota Sioux. The area was considered to be sacred before the erection of the monument; the area had been used by the Indians for obtaining spiritual power and making contact with the spirit world. It was here that many Indians conducted ceremonies such as the vision quest, and the Sun Dance. Indian’s sacred places were often not places constructed by humans, but places which were naturally sacred, whereas Europeans tended to build the places they considered to be sacred such as churches, statues, and memorials. The Indians typically considered the landscape around them to be pristine in its natural form, they did not see the need to change it, nor did they see a need hold it unto themselves but saw that they should share it with all living things. The living things within this landscape included the plants and animals, as well as the rivers, the rocks, the mountains, and the hills. Oftentimes the Indians used these sacred lands as portals to make contact with the spirit world. (nativeamericannetroots.net) |
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Joel Sternfeld is an award-winning photographer from New York who uses photographs to convey the meaning of modern American identity. His image of Mt. Rushmore is from a collection that first appeared in On This Site: Landscape in memoriam (1996), for which Sternfeld photographed fifty seemingly ordinary sites, each the scene of a tragic event. His explanation is as follows: “The landscape contains meaning, contains clues… The place itself becomes very important in so many of these tragic events… Having that one bit of certainty allows you to have your emotions in a way that all the verbiage does not” (McQuade, 140).
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Looking at Sternfeld’s photo closely one can see that he has an incredible way of capturing the irony in the image. Sternfeld’s photo of Mount Rushmore is a glaring statement on the government’s reprehensible treatment of Native Americans. |
The composition and details of the image serve to reinforce his point. The image is shot from behind an array of modern high-powered lights that are focused upon, and serve to illuminate, the faces on the mountain during nighttime, as if to pierce the mountainside and surrounding area with a glowing reminder that no matter if day or night, this land is no longer sacred, and can never escape the injustice served upon it. The trees in the area all seem young, small, and immature as if they too, like the land the lights are erected upon, had been stripped down to nothing. These saplings, young, small and immature not unlike like the minds of the men who came to erect the lights and tear away the mountain. In the background of the photo is the mountain with the images of the four great men, our founding fathers, carved out in stone looking so regal, yet so pompous. I wonder if any of these great white men would have objected to the land being desecrated in order to preserve their images in time. The sky appears to be pale white, white like the white man who has come to the valley to strip away a place which once had so much meaning and added so much color to the lives of the Indians.
The great stone mountains have been carved and striped away from their natural state to be replaced with the faces of white men, not unlike how the sacred grounds have been striped away from the Indians and replaced with gift shops and scenic views for the white man to enjoy. At the base of these faces lie great piles of the carved away granite rock from the mountain, covering everything below it with its massive weight so that no trees, shrubs, or even grass will grow. I imagine that pile to be like a burying of the Indians’ spirit with such heaviness that it was sure to crush their spirit which was gone forever below a constant oppressive weight so insurmountable that it could never be lifted away. There are many documented ironies about the site chosen for the memorial, the Indians use of the land prior to the erecting of the memorial, how it has affected their lives, and the lives of others. The first irony is, “The creation of Mount Rushmore is a story of struggle — and to some, desecration. The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux, the original occupants of the area when white settlers arrived. For some, the four presidents carved in the hill are not without negative symbolism” (PBS Online).
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The irony here is the idea for carving a colossal monument in the Black Hills came from South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson. In late August 1924, he proposed the idea to sculptor Gutzon Borglum, hoping to entice him to carve heroes of the Old West—Redcloud, Custer, and others—on the Needles, eroded granite pillars just south of Mount Rushmore in what is now Custer State Park. The Needles, it turned out, were too soft to carve, and Borglum had different ideas about what figures should be memorialized. He was not interested in regional heroes, but men who epitomized the flowering of our nation—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. To me, this just further demonstrates the utter irony of the issue at hand because the original idea was to memorialize Native Americans and heroes of the old west. Another irony is the Lakota Sioux, perhaps more than any other group, have become the international symbol for all of America’s native peoples. The Sioux were known for their graceful tipis, warrior societies, richly feathered regalia and fast horses. Their legacy is deeply imbedded into South Dakota history. In the late 1700’s, the Sioux gained control of the Northern Plains and developed a unique culture based on the abundant buffalo herds in the area. Some of the legendary names associated with the Sioux are Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and American Horse. The movie Dances With Wolves was based on the Sioux (Native American Netroots).
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There are some notable and historic landscapes in and about the Black Hills including the site of the great massacre of General Custer at Little Big Horn. The cruelest irony is the battle of Little Big Horn was fought in June of 1876 by Lakota Sioux and the Cheyenne for the right to keep the all important spiritual center of the Great Sioux Reservation, specifically the Black Hills. The Black Hills were granted to the Lakota’s in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Just months prior, the US government had offered the Lakota $6 million for the land, having discovered gold there. When the Indians refused, the government threatened legislation, cutting off all subsistence to the tribe if they refused to comply. Some tribal leaders eventually caved in. Those who did not—including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse—chose to fight (PBS Online).
The final irony is that Mount Rushmore is a successful tourist attraction. The non-Indian businesses in the area are earning about $100 million annually. Just 60 miles east of the monument, however, the Pine Ridge Reservation, home to many of the Sioux who had been the aboriginal owners, is one of the poorest areas in the United States with an unemployment rate of about 80% (Native American Netroots). |
Steps have been taken just recently, in 2012, to repair the damage done to the Native Americans. United Nations special reporter James Anaya, completed a fact-finding mission which included meetings with White House officials and Native American tribal leaders, that led him to suggest that the United States take additional steps that would serve to repair the nations legacy of oppression against Native Americans. Anaya argues that “land restoration would help bring about reconciliation.” He named the Black Hills as an example. He also believes that “restoring to indigenous people what they have a legitimate claim to can be done in a way that is not divisive, so that the Black Hills, for example, isn’t just a reminder of the subordination and domination of indigenous peoples in that country” (Huffington Post Online).
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Anaya also points out that doing so would be a key step to repairing relations with the indigenous people that once controlled the land that was taken from them. As a result of his mission, President Barack Obama passed a measure that reversed a previous vote that will further the nations’ compliance with a U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
An image is a powerful thing that transcends words and rationalization, and elicits thoughts, ideas and connections that we make consciously and unconsciously. What are the things that the observer recognizes consciously about a photograph that raises his/her interest? My opinion is Sternfeld’s statement about the injustices perpetrated against the Native Americans is captured quite clearly in his photo, and is shared by many people. To me, Mount Rushmore symbolizes the treaties broken by the United States, treaties that were drafted with the intention of preserving the land and wellbeing of the Native Americans. In my opinion Mount Rushmore should be considered the Shrine of Hypocrisy rather than as the Shrine of Democracy because it immortalizes the reprehensible treatment of the Native American people. Is there hope for any reconciliation? Anaya’s research and the subsequent actions taken by the Obama administration would suggest that there is hope for the Native American people.
Works cited:
Donald McQuade – Christine McQuade – Bedford/St. Martin’s – 2010
“Mount Rushmore.” Native American Netroots::. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2012. <http://www.nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1212/mount-rushmore>.
Wing, Nick. “Mt. Rushmore Site Should Be Returned To Indigenous Native American Tribes, U.N. Official Says.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 07 May 2012. Web. 01 Oct. 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/mt-rushmore-un-report-james-anaya_n_1496120.html
“Native Americans and Mount Rushmore.” PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2012. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rushmore/peopleevents/p_sioux.html
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