The stars and the earth have guided the way for the Sioux people since time immemorial. The former are above interference, as each star holds its course and its aim eternally. The earth, however, is all too vulnerable to the whims of the irreverent.
Many important sandstone rocks once dotted the Minnesotan landscape. The blushing anomalies were far more than waymarks alongside the trails traditionally traversed by the Sioux. They were sacred objects: representations of Mother Earth venerated by the Sioux as part of their inextricable spiritual connection to the land.
White settlers’ indifference to the Sioux way of life did not bode well for the Sacred Red Rocks. Some were pulverized by dynamite or beneath the faces of sledgehammers to deter the Sioux from congregating on privately owned land. Others have been squirreled away by private collectors who regard them as little more than curios. But a few – too few, but a few – have been restored to their rightful place with the Sioux people.
“Inajapi,” said Sheldon Peters Wolfchild, a tribal member of the Mdewakanton Sioux Nation. “In our language, that word means standing up and accepting responsibility to do what’s right. As a representative of the Lower Sioux Indian Community’s group of elders, inajapi compels me to safekeep our traditional belief system. Our group does not concern itself with politics. We only wish to preserve the spiritual path that stretches behind and ahead of our people.
“In 2004 our elders held a ceremony at Newport United Methodist Church, which is the current location of one of our Sacred Red Rocks. It was then that Chris Leith, Ernie Peters Longwalker, and other spiritual leaders of the Dakota Nation decided to renew our efforts to relocate Sacred Red Rocks to our land in Mendota – the center of the earth, where the Minnesota and the Mississippi Rivers meet.”
As fortune would have it, one of the lost Sacred Red Rocks was rather unambiguously sitting in Eden Prairie. One of its previous locations was included in the 1854 government survey of Eden Prairie Township. Betty Curle Baxter, who grew up on one of our town’s old farms, recalled a peculiarly large and reddish stone near her home where Sioux people would regularly gather. And when Mike McGraw sold his land in 2012, he suspected the rock it contained was of sufficient importance to merit its relocation to his friends’ front lawn. They were soon-to-be Mayor Ron Case and his wife Kathie, who presently serves as president of the Eden Prairie Historical Society.
“Betty made the whole thing possible,” said Kathie. “We hadn’t known what the Sacred Red Rock looked like or where it was located before she stepped forward with documentation. In a great stroke of luck, Betty also attends the same church as Bill Konrardy – a personal friend of Sheldon’s who was able to corroborate her account.”
Sheldon soon verified the Sacred Red Rock’s authenticity through ceremony. The specifics of that ceremony are sacrosanct. “We have our own belief system, which is correct, and which we aren’t obliged to explain to the non-Indian,” said Sheldon. “If you would like a deeper understanding of our beliefs, then I recommend reading God Is Red: A Native View of Religion by Vine Deloria, Jr., or watching The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code, a documentary I produced alongside Steven Newcomb of the Shawnee tribe.”
The exact whereabouts of the Sacred Red Rock are no longer a matter of public record. It has been secreted away by the Dakota elders to a place where it will be protected, respected, and central to future ceremonies.
“I have been involved with the historical society for 34 years,” said Kathie. “Of everything we have ever done, nothing has felt so rewarding as witnessing the reunion of the Sacred Red Rock with its rightful heirs. Our role was admittedly small, but I believe the city of Eden Prairie is blessed to have become a footnote in the Dakota people’s immeasurably long history.”
“In 2004 our elders held a ceremony at Newport United Methodist Church, which is the current location of one of our Sacred Red Rocks. It was then that Chris Leith, Ernie Peters Longwalker, and other spiritual leaders of the Dakota Nation decided to renew our efforts to relocate Sacred Red Rocks to our land in Mendota – the center of the earth, where the Minnesota and the Mississippi Rivers meet.”