1. Plato writes:

In fact, Megillus and Clinias, there is a further consideration we must not ignore. Some localities have a more marked tendency than others to produce better or worse men, and we are not to legislate in the face of the facts. Some, I conceive, owe their propitious or ill-omened character to variations in winds and sunshine, others to their waters, and yet others to the products of the soil, which not only provide the body with better or worse sustenance, but equally affect the mind for good or bad. Most markedly conspicuous of all, again, will be localities which are the homes of some supernatural influence, or the haunts of spirits who give a gracious or ungracious reception to successive bodies of settlers. A sagacious legislator will give these facts all consideration a man can, and do his best to adapt his legislation to them. So you, too, Clinia, must of course do the same. As the intended colonizer of a district you must give your first attention to such points.

Plato, Laws, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato 747d-e. (Hamilton, E. and Cairns, H. eds. 1982)Google Scholar.

2. Agreement with the Indians of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. 29 Stat. 321, 353-54 (1896).

3. Robert J. Yetter; Kieth K. Schultz; Woodrow Kipp; George C. Kipp; Galen Bullshoe, Jr.; and Steven K. Kloetsel. “Appeal of the Lewis and Clark National Forest Plan and Environmental Impact Statements.” Washington, DC: Before the Chief United States Forest Service, USDA, June 4, 1986; and “Re-Appeal of the Lewis and Clark National Forest Plan.” Appeal no. 1633, Washington, DC: Before the Chief of the Forest Service, USDA, January 1987.

4. USDA—Forest Service, Lewis and Clark National Forest Plan—Record of Decision. Great Falls, Mt: Forest Supervisor's OfficeGoogle Scholar, Lewis and Clark National Forest, June 4, 1986. This Forest Service claim that the “right to cut and remove timber” denies the option of legal wilderness designation is mistaken. A careful reading of the 1964 Wilderness Act acknowledges that timber may be cut where required for beneficial mining purposes in accordance with reasonable and sound management principles. Wilderness Act, Pub. L. No. 88-577, 78 Stat. 890 (1964) [see sec. 4(d)(e)]. Given this model, that is subject to valid existing rights prior to January 1, 1984, it is possible to include the Badger-Two Medicine area in a wilderness designation while acknowledging the Blackfeet's beneficial timber privileges under the 1896 Agreement (supra note 2). Indeed, such a model was enacted when Congress returned 48,000 acres of the Carson National Forest to the people of Pueblo de Taos in New Mexico; this sacred wildland, the Blue Lake watershed, was revested tot he Taos people provided the lands “remain forever wild” and “Be maintained as a wilderness as defined in section 2(c) of the Act of September 3, 1964 (78 Stat. 890).” Act approved Dec. 15, 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-550, 84 Stat. 1437 (1970) ]see sec. 4(b)]. In this same Act of revestment, Congress provisioned the beneficial use of wood and timber by the tribe despite the official mandate of wilderness preservation cited above. Id. at sec. 4(a). Clearly then, the Forest Service statement denying potential wilderness designation on the grounds of Blackfeet timber rights is in error. Furthermore, the Forest Service apparently made no effort to protect Blackfeet reserved rights when it leased the area for oil and gas exploration and development.

5. Vecsey, C., Environmental Religions, in Am. Indian Environments: Ecological Issues in Native Am. History 1–37 (Vecsey, C. & R.Venables, W. eds. 1980)Google Scholar (hereinafter Environmental Religions).

6. Hultkrantz, A., Belief and Worship in Native North America, 117–35 (Vecsey, C. ed. 1981)Google Scholar (hereinafter Belief and Worship) (in “Feelings for Nature among North American Indians,” Hultkrantz explains a cosmsotheistic interpretation of nature as the persepctive where “nature is sacred because it reveals, or symbolizes, the Great Mystery”). See also Hultkrantz, A., The Religions of American Indians (Setterwell, M. trans. 1970)Google Scholar (hereinafter Religon of Indians).

7. Brown, J.E., The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indian 37 (1982)Google Scholar, see also Brown, , Modes of Contemplation Through Actions: North American Indians, 30 Main Currents in Modern Thought 58 (1973–1974)Google Scholar (hereinafter Modes of Contemplation); Hughes, J.D., American Indian Ecology (1983)Google Scholar (point further confirmed); and Callicott, J.B., Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes Toward Nature: An Overview, 4(4) Envtl. Ethics 293 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (helpful in clearing away the conceptual confusion often generated in understanidng Native American ecological value traditions).

8. An early general articulation of this thesis appears in Wissler, , The Relation of Nature to Man as Illustrated by the North American Indians, 5 Ecology 311 (10 1924)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The ecological orientation of Native American religions is expressed in Speck, , The Indians and Game Preservation, 6 The Red Man 21 (09 1913)Google Scholar; Speck, , Savage Savers, 4 Frontiers 23 (10 1939)Google Scholar; Macleod, , Conservation Among Primitive Hunting Peoples, 43 Scientific Monthly 562 (1936)Google Scholar; Densmore, , Notes on the Indians' Belief in the Friendliness of Nature, 4 S.W.J. of Anthropology 94 (1948)Google Scholar; Heizer, , Primitive Man as an Ecologic Factor, 13 The Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers 1 (Fall 1953)Google Scholar; Udall, S.L., The Land Wisdom of the Indians in The Quiet Crisis (1963)Google Scholar; Udall, S.L., The Indians: First Americans, First Ecologists, in Look to The Mountain Top (Iacopi, R., Fontana, B. & Jones, C. eds. 1972)Google Scholar; Waters, , Two Views of Nature: White and Indian, The S.D. Rev. (1964)Google Scholar; Coffer, W.E., Spirits of the Sacred Mountains: Creation of the American Indians (1978)Google Scholar; Jacobs, , Indians as Ecologists and Other Environmental Themes in American Frontier History, in American Indian Environments 46 (1980)Google Scholar; Hultkrantz, , Water Spirits: The Elders of the Fish in Aboriginal North America, 7 Am. Indian Q. 1 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nabokov, , America as Holy Land, N.D.Q. 8 (1980)Google Scholar has (elaborated upon the “inner” power of the land and its meaning to Native Americans in documenting a thesis of sacred geography); Hughes, & Swain, , How Much of the Earth is Sacred Space?, 10 Envtl. Rev. 247 (1986)Google Scholar (further investigated this thesis). Other works of importance in documenting the ecological orientation and sacred geography of specific Indian tribes (by region) include: Arctic: Nelson, R.K., Hunters of the Northern Ice (1969)Google Scholar; Nelson, , Shadow of the Hunter: Stories of Eskimo Life (1980)Google Scholar. Sub-Arctic: Nelson, , Hunters of the Northern Forest (1973)Google Scholar; Nelson, , Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest (1983)Google Scholar; Speck, F.G., Naskapi (1935)Google Scholar. Eastern Woodlands: Day, , The Indian as an Ecological Factor in the Northeastern Forest, 34 Ecology 329 (1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hughes, , Forest Indians: The Holy Occupation, 1 Envtl. Rev. 2 (1977)Google Scholar; Overhold, T.W. & Callicott, J.B., Clothed-In-Fur and Other Tales: An Introduction to an Ojibwa World View (1982)Google Scholar. Southeast: Hudson, , Cherokee Concept of Natural Balance, 3 The Indian Historian 51 (1970)Google Scholar; King, , Long Island of the Holston: Sacred Cherokee Ground, 1 J. Of Cherokee Stud. 113 (1976)Google Scholar; Loftin, , The ‘Harmony Ethic’ of the Conservativse Eastern Cherokee: A Religious Interpretation, 8 J. Of Cherokee Stud. 40 (1983)Google Scholar. Plains: Brown, J.E., Conceptions of the Animals Among the Oglala Sioux: A Study of Religious Values in the Ecology of a Nomadic Hunting People, Ph.D. Dissertation (1970) (available at the University of Stockholm, Sweden)Google Scholar; Reed, G., A Native American Environmental Ethic: A Homily on Black Elk in Religion And Environmental Crisis 25 (Hargrove, E.C. ed. 1986)Google Scholar; Snow, J., These Mountains are Our Sacred Places (1977)Google Scholar; Pemberton, , ‘I Saw That It Was Holy’: The Black Hills and the Concept of Sacred Land, 3 L. & Inequality: A J. of Theory & Practice 287 (1985)Google Scholar. Basin: Clemmer, , The Pinon—Pine—Old Alley or New Pest? Western Shoshone Indians vs. The Bureau of Land Management, 9 Envt. Rev. 131 (1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hultkrantz, , Attitudes to Animals in Shoshoni Indian Religion, 4 Stud, In Comparative Religion 70 (1970)Google Scholar; Hultkrantz, , The Indians and the Wonders of Yellowstone: A Study of the Interrelations of Religion, Nature, and Culture, 19 Ethnos 34 (1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hultkrantz, A., Religion and Ecology Among the Great Basin Indians, in The Realm of the Extra-Human Ideas, and Actions 137 (Bharati, A. ed. 1976)Google Scholar; Romeo, , Concepts of Nature and Power: Environmental Ethics of the Northern Ute, 9 Envtl. Rev. 150 (1985)Google Scholar. Southwest: Ballinger, , The Responsible Center: Man and Nature in Pueblo and Nav-aho Ritual Songs and Prayers, 30 Am. Q. 90 (1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ballinger, F., Between Sacred Mountains: Navajo Stories and Lessons from the Land (Bingham, S. & Bingham, J. eds. 1982)Google Scholar; Loftin, J.D., Emergence and Ecology: A Religio-Ecological Interpretation of the Hopi Way (1983)Google Scholar; Gorman, , Navajo Vision of Earth and Man, 6 The Indian Historian 19 (1973)Google Scholar; Luckert, K.W., Navajo Mountain and Rainbow Bridge Religion (1977)Google Scholar; McCool, , Federal Indian Policy and the Sacred Mountains of the Papago Indians, 9 J. of Ethnic Stud. 57 (1981)Google Scholar; Steward, , Ecological Aspects of Southwestern Society, 32 Anthropos 87 (1937)Google Scholar; Ragsdale, , Law and Environment in Modern America and Among the Hopi Indians: A Comparison of Values, 10 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 417 (1986)Google Scholar; Whatley, , The Saga of the Taos Pueblo: The Blue Lake Controversy, 2 The Indian Historian 22 (1969)Google Scholar; Evans-Wentz, W.Y., Cuhama and Sacred Mountains (Waters, F. & Adams, C.L. eds. 1981)Google Scholar; Swezey, & Heizer, , Ritual Management of Salmonid Fish Resourcses in California, 4 J. of Cal. Anthropology 6 (1977)Google Scholar; Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n v. Peterson, 795 F. 2d 688, 691-93 (9th Cir. 1986). Pacific Northwest: Whalen, , The Nez Perces' Relationship to Their Land, 4 The Indian Historian 30 (1971)Google Scholar. These Native American ecological value traditions are contrasted with the Biblical tradition in Cox, K.L. Mooney, A Comparison of the Bible and Native American Views of the Human Relationship with Nature (1979)Google Scholar; also the American Indian influence on modern consecration is discussed in Cornell, , The Influence of Native Americans on Modern Conservationists, 9 Envtl. Rev. 104 (1985)Google Scholar; Cornell, G. L., Native American Contributions to the Formation of the Modern Conservation Ethic (1982)Google Scholar. Also helpful in this context are: Fleck, , John Muir's Evolving Attitudes Toward Native American Culture, 4 Am. Indian Q. 19 (1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sayre, R.F., Thoreau and the American Indians (1977)Google Scholar.

9. 42 U.S.C. § 1996 (1982), reads as follows:

On and after August 11, 1978, it shall be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.

10. The Taos Blue Lake legislation revested 48,000 acres of the Carson National Forest to the Pueblo de Taos Indians providing that the Indians (1) “use the lands for traditional purposes only” including religious ceremonials, and (2) that “the lands shall remain forever wild and shall be maintained as a wilderness as defined in section 2(c) of the Act of September 3, 1964 (78 Stat. 890). With the consent of the tribe, but not otherwise, nonmembers of the tribe may be permitted to enter the lands for purposes compatible with their preservation as a wilderness.” American Indian Religious Freedom Act, Pub. L. No. 95-341, 42 U.S.C. par. 1996 (1978). Some cases involving Native American religious freedom and sacred geography include): Badoni v. Higginson, 638 F.2d 172 (10th Cir. 1980), cert, denied, 452 U.S. s954 (1981) (regarding Navajo rights at Rainbow Bridge, Utah); Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 620 F.2d 1159 (6th Cir. 1980), cert, denied, 449 U.S. 953 (1980) (regarding Cherokee rights in the Little Tennessee Valley); Wilson v. Block, 708 F.2d 735 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (regarding Hopi and Navajo rights in the San Francisco Peaks, Arizona); Frank Fools Crow v. Gullett, 706 F.2d 856 (8th Cir. 1983) (regarding Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne rights at Bear Butte, South Dakota); Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n v. Peterson, 764 F.2d 581 (9th Cir. 1985) (regarding Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa rights in the “high country” of the Six Rivers National Forest, California (pending before the Supreme Court at present)). A plethora of Native American religious liberty articles have emerged from these cases, some of which include: Michaelsen, , ‘We Also Have a Religion’: The Free Exercise of Religion Among Native Americans, 7 Am. Indian Q. 111 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Craven, , The American Indian Religious Freedom Act—An Answer to the Indians' Prayers?, 29 S.D.L. Rev. 131 (1983)Google Scholar; Sewell, , The American Indian Religious Freedom Act, 29 Ariz. L. Rev. 131 (1983)Google Scholar; Michaelsen, , The Significance of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, 52 J. of the Am. Acad. of Religion 92 (1984)Google Scholar; Michaelsen, , American Indian Religious Freedom Litigation: Promise and Perils, 3 J. Law & Relig. 47 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Civil Rights, Indian Rites, 21 Society 42 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nettiksimmons, D., American Indian Religions and the First Amendment: Constitutional Protection of the Natural Environment, M.A. thesis 1980 (available at the University of Montana, Missoula)Google Scholar; Suagee, , American Indian Religious Freedoma nd Cultural Resources Management: Portecting Mother Earth's Caretakers, 10 Am. Indian L. Rev. 1 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stambor, , Manifest Destiny and American Indian Religious Freedom: Sequoyah, Badoni, and the Drowned Gods, 10 Am. Indian L. Rev. 59 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pepper, , The Conundrum of the Free Exercise Clause—Some Reflections on Recent Cases, 9 Northern Ky. L. Rev. 265 (1982)Google Scholar; Ensworth, , Native American Free Exercise Rights to the Use of Public Lands, 63 B.U.L. Rev. 141 (1983)Google Scholar; Andreason, Indian Worship v. Government Development: A New Breed of Religious Cases, 1984 Utah L. Rev. 313 (1984); Schneebeck, Constitutional Law—Religious Freedom and Public Land Use. Wilson v. Block, 708F.2d 735, 20 Land & Water L. Rev. 109 (1985); Rosenberg, , Native Americans' Access to Religious Sites: Underprotected Under the Free Exercise Clause?, 26 B.C.L. Rev. 463 (1985)Google Scholar; Talbot, , Desecration and American Indian Religious Freedom, 12 J. of Ethnic Stud. 1 (1985)Google Scholar; Gordon, , Indian Religious Freedom and Governmental Development of Public Lands, 94 Yale L.J. 1447 (1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gronhovd, Lawlor, O'Keefe, & Talsott, Constitutional Law—Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n v. Petersen: Indian Religious Sites Prevail over Public Land Development, 62 Notre Dame L. Rev. 169 (1986); Barsh, , The Illusion of Religious Freedom for Indigenous American, 65 Or. L. Rev. 363 (1986)Google Scholar; Gould, , The First Amendment and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act: An Approach to Protecting Native American Religions, 71 Iowa L. Rev. 869 (1968)Google Scholar.

11. Ewers, J.C., The Blackfeet: Raiders of the Northwestern Plains 6 (1958)Google Scholar; Grinnell, , Early Blackfoot History, 5 Am. Anthropologist 157 (1982)Google Scholar [hereinafter Early Blackfoot] (who claims that the Blackfeet took possession of the northwest plains from the Missouri River to the Saskatchewan River in very ancient times).

12. Ewers, supra note 11, at 28; Early Blackfoot, supra note 11, at 153; Schultz, J.W. (Apikuni), Blackfeet And Buffalo: Memories of Life among the Indians 271 (Seele, K. ed. 1962)Google Scholar [hereinafter Blackfeet and Buffalo] (which explains the misunderstanding that led to the break between the Blackfeet and the Atsina or Gros Ventres).

13. Grinnell, G.B., Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People (1962)Google Scholar [hereinafter Blackfoot Lodge Tales]. Grinnell points out the similarity of Blackfeet stories and eastern Algonquian tales: he explains, “The reader of these Blackfoot stories will not fail to notice many curious resemblances to tails told among other distant and different peoples. Their similarity to those current among the Ojibwas, and other Eastern Algonquian tribes, is sufficiently obvious and altogether to be expected, nor is it at all remarkable that we should find, among the Blackfeet, tales identical with those told by tribes of different stock far to the south” by these latter tribes, Grinnell refers to the other Plains Algonquian peoples—the Cheyenne and the Arapha. See also Wissler, & Duvall, , Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians 2 Anthropological Papes 9 (Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 1908)Google Scholar (comment concerning the Blackfeet cultural origins and their mythic similarity with other Algonquian peoples including the Cree, Ojibwa, and Fox, among others).

14. In general, I have derived this from Hallowell, , Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View in Selected Papers of A. Irving Hallowell 357 (1976)Google Scholar. My position is specifically documented in “Algonquian Metaphysics & Kitchi Manitou: Ontological and Ethical Reflections Upon an Ultimate Animating Life Principle,” in “Wilderness and Environmental Ethics: A Philosophy of Wilderness Praxis,” Ph.D.Dissertation 1987 (available at the University of Montana).

15. Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 210; on the desecration of sacred lands see Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n v. Peterson, 795 F.2d 688, 691-92 (9th Cir. 1986), where “Communication with the Great Creator is possible in the high country because of the pristine environment and opportunikty for solitude found there. … Intrusions on (its) sanctity are … potentially destructive of the very core of Northwest Indian religious beliefs and practices”; see also Belief and Worship, supra note 6, at 128-29; Environmental Religions, supra note 5, at 20-21 (emphasizes that denigrating nature is unethical in these traditions); Modes of Contemplation, supra note 7, at 59 (explains that “What we relegate to the category of the animal or the birds, implying inferiority to man, the Indian refers to as ‘peoples’ who, in a sense, have a recognized superiority to man, since it is generally believed that in the order of creation they were here before man, and in these cultures what is anterior has a certain superiority over that which is more recent.”).

16. McClintock, W., The Old North Trail: Life, Legends and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians 167 (1968)Google Scholar [hereinafter The Old North]; Blackfeet And Buffalo, supra note 12, at 31-32 (records a similar prayer which goes “Oh Sun! Oh, Above People! Pity us; held us …. Oh, Earth Mother! Pity us; help us”); this sacred ecology is even more profound in Schultz, J.W. (Apikuni), Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park 52 (1916)Google Scholar [hereinafter Blackfeet Tales Of Glacier] (wherein Mountain Chief when searching for two Buffalo horses, leads the people in the “song of all living things” which honors “the birds, the animals, the trees, the rocks—yes, even they have life.”); further confirming this general point Clark, E.C., Indian Legends from the Northern Rockies, 270–71 (1966)Google Scholar (explains the spiritual significance of “the Nature” remarking “By ‘the Nature,’ Mr. Creighton (a Blood Indian) referred to the supernatural, the spirit power.” The context of Creighton's remarks involve a Dream vision in which he is told by the Dream Person: “You will make a Sun Lodge. Then the Nature will show you where you will find buffalo.”).

17. The Old North, supra note 16, at 169-70. “The Sun, as the great centre of power and the upholder of all things, was the Blackfeet's supreme object of worship. He saw that every bud and leaf and blossom turned its face towards the Sun as the source of its life and growth; that the berries he ate reddened and ripened under its warmth; that men and animals thrived under its sustaining light, but all perished when it was withdrawn. He saw that in the darkness and cold of winter, nature retired into silence and sleep; that when the sunlight and warmth of spring returned, all nature awakened and put on its robe of gbreen; the bears left their hibernating dens and the beavers their winter lodges. The Sun made the grass to grow and the trees to be covered with foliage for substistence of the birds and animals, upon which men, women and children and everything that had breath to worship the all-glorious, all-powerful, Sun-God who fills the heavens with life and beauty. To them, he is the supreme source of light, of life, and of power.” Id. Presenting this same point today, Bullchild, P., The Sun Came Down: The History of the World as My Blackfeet Elders Told It 325 (1985)Google Scholar “Our people of the Piegans call this Creator Nah-doo-si, Holy One, or as others call him, Sun. I think praying to the sun itself is the truest form of religion or faith. The sun doesn't have any certain nationality or color, it is just the sun, and high above us all with its life-giving elements, the power of its rays to make our food grow. The sun has been in existence from time beginning, when no other beings were on this earth, no one to call it something else, God didn't come into existence until the Europeans brought him into this world, when they invented God to make their misdoings good.” Id. J.W. Schultz (Apikuni), Bear Chief's War Shirt 133-34 (W.W. Betts ed. 1983) [hereinafter Bear Chief's War Shirt]. When the Blackfeet offer prayers and songs to the Sun they pray: “If the Sun were God, this was the time He would have blessed his children for their reverance for all of Nature,” id.; see also Wissler & Duvall, supra note 13, at 10.

18. Wissler & Duvall, supra note 13, at 10 (explain the sun's “other-than-human person” nature; further reflecting the process ontology are chants, songs, and prayers, such as “Great Spirit in the Sun!” “Sacred Spririt in the Sun!” “Great Sun Power! and “Great Mystery in the Sun!”). See The Old North, supra note 16, at 85, 98, 175, 248, 297, 305, 210, 418 & 470 (for examples). Modes of Contemplation, supra note 7, at 59 (provides further understanding for this metaphysical position as it immutably conjoins material principal with spiritual principle; he explains: “The tree at the center of the Sun dance lodge, then, does not just represent the axis of the world, but it is that axis and is the center of the world. The eagle is not a symbol of the sun, but is the sun in a certain sense; and similarly the sun is not a ‘symbol of’ the creative Principle, but it is that Principle as manifested in the Sun.”) Id. Because of this ontological position's difference with the Western Tradition, the “supernatural” is a common way of referencing this process: it is, however, misleading since the “supernatural” is a Western conceptual distinction which is not recognized among these religions.

19. Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 256-57 (contends that the idea of light as the Creator would be absurd to the Blackfeet of today: “The statement that Old Man was merely light personified would be beyond his comprehension, and if he did understand what was meant, he would laugh at it, and aver that Na'pi was a real man, a flesh and blood person like himself”). Id. The personification of light and Na'pi is not as incongruent as Grinnell implies here; moreover, Na'pi is an “other-than-human person,” therefore sharing the attributes of light with the attributes of personhood. In consequence, this example is an ontological acknowledgement of material principal—Old Man—representing spiritual principle—light— such as I outlined earlier. See also Blackfeet Tales of Glacier, supra note 16, at 97 (concurs with Grinnell declaring that the meaning of Na‘pi is “dawn, or the first faint, white light that gives birth to the day.” Thus, “the original religion of the Blackfeet was the worship of light personified.”). Further demonstrating the personhood of Na'pi, see Ewers, supra note 10, at 145 (points to his role as trickster explaining “It is significant they looked upon Old Man not only as the Creator but as a humorous little fellow who went around trying to play tricks on people and animals and whose tricks sometimes backfired. Many Na'pi stories are not only funny, but obscene.”). Id. Wissler & Duvall, supra note 13, at 10-11 (records Na'pi's role as “the blunderer, the immoral mischief-maker”)’ see also Id. at 53 (for Na'pi's role as creator).

20. Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 258-60 (explains that Natos' (Sun) is only another name for Na'pi (Old Man)). Wissler & Duvall, supra note 13, at 10 (document, however, that “Natos refers to the Sun-Man, whose consort is the Moon-Woman, a character regarded as distinct from the Old Man”). Furthermore, they delcare that earlier writers were disposed to treat Natos, the Sun, as the “home of the Old Man” while later each—the Sun and Old Man—became a distinct character.

21. Bear Chief's War Shirt, supra note 17, at 81; The Old North, supra note 16, at 519; Wissler & Duvall, supra note 13, at 13 (point out that “the myths are, in a sense, prelude to the rituals; yet, when one asks for the reason or significance of a specific part of a ritual, he is referred at once to the myth.”).

22. The Old North, supra note 13, at 491-99; Wissler & Duvall, supra note 12, at 58-65; Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 93-103; Blackfeet and Buffalo, supra note 12, at 338-43; Grinnell, G.B., Blackfeet Indian Stories 87–106 (1913)Google Scholar [hereinafter Blackfeet Indian Stories]; Josselin De Jong, P.B. De, Blackfoot Texts 80–82, 95–97 (1914)Google Scholar (“The girl who married the sun,” and “Scarface”); Schultz, J.W. (Apikuni) & Donaldson, J.L., The Sun God's Children 71–82 (1930)Google Scholar; Clark, supra note 16, at 260-70; Bullchild, supra note 17, at 325-90.

23. The Old North, supra note 16, at 170; Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 93. Omistaipokah (White Calf) is quoted in The Old North, supra note 16, at 297; see also Blackfeet and Buffalo, supra note 12, at 31-32 (wherein a Sun Priest prays to the Sun, the Above People, and the Earth Mother).

24. The Old North, supra note 16, at 352; Bullchild, supra note 17, at 326; Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 277.

25. The Old North, supra note 16, at 253 (explains that “The Medicine Pipe was given to the Blackfeet long ago, when the thunder struck down a man. While he lay on the ground, Thunder Chief appeared in a vision, showing him a pipe, and saying ‘I have chosen you that I might give you this pipe …’ “ the Grizzly bear appeared afterwards to the same man offering his skin for the sacred bundle and a song of a bear charging which is said to be used in discerning truth). Other animals also contributed to the Pipe bundle, but the bear is most sifnificant in its Medicine Power; McClintock, , The Thunderbird Myth, 15 Masterkey 166 (1941)Google Scholar [hereinafter Thunderbird Myth] (subsequently confirms taht the Thunder Pipe was given during a storm near the summit of a high mountain); see also Wissler, , Ceremonial Bundles of the Blackfoot Indians, VII Anthropological Papers 136, 164–65 (1912)Google Scholar; Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 113-16, Ewers, supra note 11, at 41; Blackfeet Tales of Glacier, supra note 16, at 36; Clark, supra note 16, at 274. Bear Chief's War Shirt, supra note 17, at 7 (the Sacred Pipe is also used in honoring mountains as the home of thunder); on its power and burden see The Old North, supra note 16, at 251-70, 423; Blackfeet Indian Stories, supra note 22, at 53 (further affirms that Thunder is the most powerful of all things. The significance of the substitution rule—badger for bear—when in the presnece of the Sacred Pipe will manifest itself in subsequent discussion).

26. Blackfeet And Buffalo, supra note 12, at 306, 349 (emphasizes the Blackfeet belief that dreams are actual experiences); Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 263 (continues “A dream, especially if it is a strong one,—that is, if the dream is very clear and vivid,—is almost always obeyed. As dreams start, them on the war path, so, if a dream threatening bad luck comes to a member of the war party, even if in the enemy's country, and just about to make an attack on a camp, the party is likely to turn about and go home without making any hostile demonstrations. The animal or object which appears to the boy or man, who is trying to dream for power, is, as has been said, regarded thereafter as his secret helper, his medicine, and is usually called his dream (Nits-o'-kan)”; Modes of Contemplation, supra note 7, at 62 (delcares the retreat or “vision quest” to be the foundation of Native American religion and it is “the most profound spiritual dimension at the heart of these cultures,” in the vision quest, “the individual opens himself in the most direct manner to contact with the spiritual essences underlying the forms of the manifested world.” “No person in these [Plains Indian] societies, it was believed could have success in any of the activities of the culture without the special spiritual power received through the quest”); The Old North, supra note 16, at 352-53 (further emphasizing the mountains in these dream-visions, Siyeh (Mad Wolf) responds to a letter from McClintock explaining “I went alone to the mountains and entering the forest, I fell asleep and had a dream), id. at 172); see also Clark, supra note 16, at 255-56 (who explains that it was Old Man who taught one how to get spirit power).

27. Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 191-92.

28. Wissler, supra note 25, at 104-05; Religion of Indians, supra note 6, at 77 (also recognizes the wilderness requirement essential to vision quest settings, he comments “Typically, the vision of the guardian spirit is individual, sought and obtained in solitude and isolation out in the wilderness—for example, on secluded mountains and hills”); this conclusion comports with Modes of Contemplation, supra note 7, at 62.

29. Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 192; The Old North, supra note 16, at 143.

30. Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 143-44; Blackfeet and Buffalo, supra note 12, at 311-12 (confirms this position); Blackfeet Indian Stories, supra note 22, at 155 (wherein Na'pi tells the Blackfeet to defend the land he has given them).

31. The Old North, supra note 16, at 13 (reports this appropriate name (“Back-bone-of-the-World”) for the Rocky Mountains, but it is used widely throughout the literature). For reference to Thunder see Thunderbird Myth, supra note 25, at 164-68; The Old North, supra note 16, at 266; and further he states that “The legendary habitation of the Thunderbird was usually in a high mountain, or inaccessible craig in the tribes vicinity,” id. at 520. Contemporary Keeper of a Sacred Pipe bundle, George Kipp, points out “We were shown where Thunder lives. He lives in those mountains up there.” With this point, Kipp is referencing the Badger-Two Medicine wildlands, see Schultz, , Sacred Land, 2 Missoula Muse 7 (1986)Google Scholar. In accounting for the home of Wind Maker, see The Old North, supra note 16, at 60-62; and for the Medicine Wolf and the Medicine Grizzly, see id. at 466-78; and for McClintock's lodge decor, id. at 222.

32. Bear Chief's War Shirt, supra note 17, at 71; Two Medicine Lodges River is further affirmed as a sacred stream in Schultz, J.W. (Apikuni), Friends of My Life an Indian (1923) at 1Google Scholar; The Old North, supra note 16, at 438.

33. Several accounts of Na'pi's adventure with the wind along Birch Creek are available, see Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 172-73; The Old North, supra note 16, at 338-40, 438; Josselin de Jong, supra note 22, 15 10-12; Wissler & Duvall, supra note 13, at 2527; Blackfeet Indian Stories, supra note 22, at 184; Bullchild, supra note 17, at 177-78 (who declares that it was Na'pi's butt which committed the offense and suffered the punishment). Maclean, , Blackfoot Mythology, 7 Journal Of American Mythology 165 (1983)Google Scholar (accounts for the “origin of wind” explaining that it “is caused by a very large deer [the Medicine Elk] which dwells in the mountains” flapping its ears to create wind; or as others claim by “large cattle in the mountains, who roar loudly and thus cause the wind to blow; and again others [claim], that it is caused by a large bird flapping its wings in the mountains.”).

34. The Old North, supra note 16, at 438.

35. Schultz, J.W. (Apikuni), Plumed Snake Medicine 66–67 (1924)Google Scholar.

36. The Old North, supra note 16, at 468-73; Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 67-69 (it is Mika'pi (Red Old Man) who when injured prays to the Sun for help and a big grizzly bear appears inquiring of Mika'pi's problems. In turn the bear offers his help to Mika'pi by feeding him berries, by plastering his arm with mud, and by carrying him four days to the Pikuni lodges. Upon reaching the Pikuni camp, the bear speaks telling Mika'pi “Get off, my brother get off. There are your people. I must leave you.” And without another word the bear turned and went off up into the mountains). Clearly this bear is the Medicine Grizzly or Chief Bear; and in his returning home to the mountains, he is returning home to the Badger-Two Medicine area. See also Blackfoot Indian Stories, supra note 22, at 126-27.

37. The Old North, supra note 16, at 473-76.

38. Schultz (Apikuni) & Donaldson, supra note 22, at 48-69.

39. Blackfoot Lodge Tales, supra note 13, at 29-34; Blackfeet Indian Stories, supra note 22, at 10-22. This point declaring the “chief of place” adds further confirmation to the concluding point of the preceding paragraph.

40. Schultz, J.C. (Apikuni), Why Gone Those Times?: Blackfoot Tales 208 (Silliman, E.L. ed. 1974) [hereinafter Why Gone?]Google Scholar.

41. Blackfeet Tales of Glacier, supra note 16, at 98-105; the editors of Historic Montana, 1959, v. 9:1 report that the men lived in the mountains south of the Two Medicine which means they were in the Badger-Two Medicine wildlands. Other accounts of Na'pi's romance include: Wissler & Duvall, supra note 13, at 21-22; The Old North, supra note 16, at 346-47; Josselin deJong, supra note 21, at 31-32. Bullchild, supra note 17, at 222-28 (also recounts this mythic courtship and places it in Alberta along the Highwood River). This location reflects the North Pikuni and the Kainah location for the courtship between men and women; thus, the apparent discrepancy of location is not a matter of error when pointing to the Two Medicine region of the Backbone for the South Pikuni.

42. Bullchild, supra note 17, at 337 (included in the Badger-Two Medicine area, Morningstar Mountain is located in section3 1, T. 29N., R. 10W.; Scarface Mountain is found at the point common to sections 15, 16, 21 & 22, T. 28N., R. 11W.; and Mt. Poia is in seciton 14 & 15, T. 28N., R. 11W., Principal Meridian, Montana, U.S.A.).

43. Albright, H.M. & Cahn, R., The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33 21–22 (1985)Google Scholar (with photo at 28); James Willard Schultz (Apikuni) devoted two books in support of Blackfeet names in Glacier National Park. Schultz, J.W. (Apikuni), Blackfeet Tales of Glacier (1926)Google Scholar; Schultz, J.W. (Apikuni), Signposts of Adventure (1926)Google Scholar.

44. 29 Stat. 321, 353-54 1896), 54th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document No. 118 transmitted Feb. 12, 1896, to the Committee on Indian Affairs, Agreement Proceedings, pp. 910.

45. Id. at 10-11.

46. Id. at 12-14.

47. Id. at 14.

48. Id. at 14-15.

49. Id. at 15-16.

50. Id. at 16.

51. Id. at 18-19.

52. Why Gone?, supra note 40, at 208 (emphasis added); Modes of Contemplation, supra note 7, at 63 (explains “it is the mysteries of the natural world which provide all the spiritual means.”).

53. George Kipp, a 1986 Thunder Pipe Keeper confirms this point concerning the most recent Sun Lodges.

54. Protection of fish and wildlife habitat from acts of environmental degradation is impliedly reserved by the treaty, see United States v. Washington, 506 F. Supp. 187, 203-07 (W.D. Wash. 1980) (wherein the Court held “that implicitly incorporated in the treaties' fishing cluase is the right to have the fishery habitat protected from man-made despoliation.” The Court cited a fisheries study prepared jointly by the state and federal government which outlined the habitat requirements of salmon and steelhead trout and which documented the decline of these fish via habitat despoliation; it concluded “Were this trend to continue, the right to take fish would eventually be reduced to the right to dip one's net into the water … and bring it out empty.”). Analogously, habitat preservation extends to the animals of the chase accorded the Blackfeet reserved rights, lest the right to hunt be reduced to the right to shoot into empty air at nonexisting animals.

55. Richmond L. Clow makes a similar point for the Sioux Nation's Black Hills land claim. Clow, , A New Look at Indian Land Suits: The Sioux Nation's Black Hills Claim as a Case for Tribal Symbolism, 28 Plains Anthropologist 315–34 (1983)Google Scholar. Nancy Oestreich Lurie explains the complex influences which account for a definition of Indian identity. Lurie, N., American Indian Renascence? in The American Indian Today 295 (1972)Google Scholar. The symbolic svlaue of Custer's defeat is addressed by Liberty, M., The Symbolic Value of the Little Big Horn in the Northern Plains in Political Organization of Native North Americans 121 (1972)Google Scholar. This cultural value has been further established in Woodrow Kipp's challenge to Glacier National Park's entry fee requirement, see United States v. Kipp, 624 F.2d 84 (9th Cir. 1980) (wherein it was held that “Blackfeet Indians have a right to enter, without charge, that portion of Glacier National Park which at one time was within boundaries of the Blackfeet Indian reservation.”).

56. The demoralizing effects of an unsympathetic government, alcoholism, racial, abuse, and other acts of social injustice are described in McClintock, , The Tragedy of the Blackfeet, Southwest Museum Papers, no. 3 (1970)Google Scholar. At the risk of redundancy, the values attributed to wild nature must be affirmed as the essential claim of the traditional religion; therefore, if the traditional identity is recovered it must include the preservation of the Badger-Two Medicine wildlands.

57. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (25 U.S.C. §§ 461-479, 1982) generally encouraged tribes to exercise governmental authority in several areas; this has resulted in a strong tribal presence on most reservations, but it has also created controversy. While tribal councils are recognized by the Department of the Interior, they do not always represent the traditional elements within the tribes. Disputes over leadership have emerged on several reservations today with the government-recognized councils challenged by “shadow” traditional governments. See generally Deloria, V. & Lytle, C., The Nations Within: A Theory of Judicial Review (1984)Google Scholar; Kelly, L., The Assault on Assimilation—John Collier and The Origins of Indian Pollicy Reform (1983)Google Scholar; Philp, K., John Collier's Crusade For Indian Reform (1977)Google Scholar.

58. Benedict, , The Vision in Plains Culture, 24 American Anthropologist 11 (1922)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (confirms that “Highest in prestige, authority, and esoteric knowledge stood the priests, guardians of the sacred tribal bundles, to whom even the chiefs were subordinate.”). The Old North, supra note 16, 270; Wissler, , The Social Life of the Blackfoot Indians, VII Anthropological Papers 51 (1911)Google Scholar (available at the Am. Museum of Natural History) (explains “The sun is called upon in the most solemn oaths.” Should a man lie or tell an improbable story, he may be asked “if he will smoke upon its truth … the one to take the oath then smokes the pipe which is considered most binding.”).

59. The Old North, supra note 16, at 384-85. Mad Wolf (McClintock's Blackfeet father/sponsor) comments on opening a medicine bundle, “I have never before explained these mysteries to white men, because I have always been afraid to trust them” Id. at 104. Black Feet Tales of Glacier, supra note 16, at 203-04 (records the belief that the presence of white people profanes their religion; but this view became prevalent only following religious persecution and Schultz (Apikuni) was specifically ask to document their traditions in writing for the benefit of Blackfeet children).

60. Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 485 U.S., 108 S.Ct. 1319, April 19, 1988. The Lyng case involved the Forest Service's proposal to road and log an area of the Six Rivers National Forest recognized to be of crucial religious significance to the Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa Indians. The Forest Service's consulting anthropologist concluded that alterations to the high country, such as those proposed by the Forest Service, would be “potentially destructive of the very core of Northwest [Indian] religious beliefs and practices.” Writing for the majority, Ms. Justice Sandra O'Connor declared “However much we might wish that it were otherwise, government simply could not operate if it were required to satisfy every citizen's needs and desires.” And further that the “Constitution does not, and the courts cannot, offer to reconcile the various competing demands on government, many of them rooted in sincere religious belief, that inevitably arise in so diverse a society as ours. That task, to the extent it is feasible, is for the legislatures and other institutions” (108 S. Ct. 1327). In dissent, Mr. Justice Brennan stated that “The Court believes that Native Americans who request that the Government refrain from destroying their religion effectly seek to exact from the Government de facto, beneficial ownership of federal property.” Brennan declared that the Court's reasoning produces “the cruelly surreal result” that “government action that will virtually destroy a religion is nevertheless deemed not to ‘burden’ that religion” (108 S. Ct. at 1330 and 1337).

Legal scholars have been unanimous and unequivocal in rejecting the Lyng majority. Michaelson, Robert S., “Is the Miner's Canary Silent? Implications of the Supreme Courts Denial of American Indian Free Exercise of Religion Claims,” 6 J. Law & Relig. 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peggy Healy, “Lyng v. Northwest Indian Protective Association: A Form-Over-Effect Standard for the Free Exercise Clause,” 20 Loyola U. Law Journal 171; Michele L. Seger, “Unjustified Interference of American Indian Religious Rights: Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 22 Creighton Law Rev. 313; Bill Peters, “Of Courts, Clauses and Native American Culture: Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 9 N.I.U. Law Rev. 419; S. Alan Ray, “Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association: Government Property Rights and the Free Exercise Clause,” 16 Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 483; Donald Falk, “Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association: Bulldozing First Amendment Protection of Indian Sacred Lands,” 16 Ecology Law Quarterly 515; and Hardt, Scott, “The Sacred Lands: Improper Line Drawing in the Supreme Court's Free Exercise Analysis,” 60 U. Colo. Law Rev. 601Google Scholar.

61. Proclamation establishing the Lewis and Clark Forest Reserve in Montana, 33 Stat., 2311 and 29 Stat., p.354, v.1, p.604 (June 9, 1903).