It is a transcript of an episode of Untold Earth, a collection from Atlas Obscura in partnership with Nature and PBS Digital Studios, which explores the seeming impossibilities behind our planet's strangest, most unusual pure wonders. From fragile, untouched ecosystems to acquainted however unexplained occurrences in our personal backyards, Untold Earth chases perception into pure phenomena via the voices of those that know them greatest.
Pansy Hawk Wing: The unique nice thriller known as Daku Shka Shka. The residing power that exists on all issues. Stones, earth, crops, stars, every little thing has Daku Shka Shka.
Narrator: Satan's Tower, often known as Matotipila or Bear's Lodge, was fashioned over 50 million years in the past. Rising dramatically from the Wyoming Plains, this spellbinding monolith is a pillar of Lakota Sioux mythology and a permanent problem to rock climbers worldwide.
However via 1000's of years of human fascination, one vital query stays unanswered. How did it get right here?
Tyler Devine: It's the first nationwide monument in the US of America. It was established in 1906, because of Theodore Roosevelt, using this factor referred to as the Antiquities Act. This rock is 867 toes tall above the customer middle. It is a few soccer subject in measurement on the highest of the tower itself.
Robert Livingston: To begin with, folks thought it was a volcano. That did not actually maintain any water as a result of round this space there isn't any pyroclastics, there isn't any tephra, lava, volcanic rock, or something like that.
What we expect it's now's what's referred to as a laccolith. The magma that got here from deep inside pushed up. And because it pushed up, it took the sedimentary rock, which is ductile or bendable, and it pushed it up right into a dome. Because it did that, the magma began to chill very, very, very slowly.
Tyler: It crystallized on this very particular option to make this columnar jointing that we see at present. Hundreds of thousands of years later, the sedimentary rock received washed down the Belfouche, and we're left with Satan's Tower with its huge, huge columns.
Cade Herrera: There are such a lot of issues which have taken place right here in our oral histories and our traditions, however the origin story of Mato Tipila is the one of many bears. There have been seven ladies taking part in, they usually went a little bit bit too far into the forest.
Pansy: It was only a hill there. And that is after they heard the bear. They knew it was too far to run again to the village, in order that they climbed up on that mound.
Cade: They requested the nice thriller, Wakan Tanka, are you able to assist us? Why is that this taking place?
Pansy: And as they have been praying, then out of the bottom got here this construction.
Cade: They usually on high of it and the bears tremendous upset.
Pansy: By then there's multiple bear. They arrive operating and they might seize the highest and they might slide down, thus placing the marks on the butte.
Cade: These rocks began falling on them, and the bears one after the other began getting pummeled. So beneath us proper now on this talus subject must be the stays of big bears.
Pansy: That is making ready a smudging. We take sage or cedar and use it to start out a small hearth. We take the smoke. And this purifies our thoughts, physique, and spirit. Smudging is one thing we do as a prayer, an acknowledgement of the nice thriller in our lives each day.
Individuals come right here for imaginative and prescient quests. Individuals come right here simply to hold prayer ties. Individuals come right here simply to hope and contact any a part of it. It is virtually like going to Sistine Chapel and getting into there realizing you're in a sacred place to go in there and pray.
And you understand that whenever you depart there you've got received some therapeutic handed on to you. That is the sacredness that we maintain Mato Tipila.
Cade: I grew up going to completely different sacred Lakota websites, however I truly by no means got here right here till I knew I used to be going to climb it. It was like seeing a skyscraper for the primary time.
I felt like anyone who had by no means been to New York earlier than and simply trying up at all the constructing. You simply see this large obelisk of stone, and me realizing I am gonna climb it for a residing, I simply seemed up at it and like there isn't any manner. It is huge.
Tyler: Rock climbers discover this place a world-renowned website for climbing. We've got anyplace from three to 5 thousand those who climb it each single yr. The Lakota folks name this place Bear Lodge. Mato Tipila. In fact, this identify Satan's Tower is disrespectful to those indigenous names, to the unique names of this website.
So, I imply, there's all the time controversy once we speak in regards to the identify of Satan's Tower and the way the identify got here to be of Satan's Tower versus Bear Lodge. And we wish to have co-stewardship of this website. It's a crucial a part of administration as we transfer ahead.
Cade: The NPS have traditionally eliminated natives from land to protect it in a way. And that is how I assumed that the NPS was going to be once I got here on to work at Satan's Tower. However seeing how the NPS and the tribes work collectively and the strides that we have made in direction of co-stewardship is absolutely, actually heartening.
Tyler: So hopefully, within the years to come back, we will proceed to construct this relationship and be capable of present a website that these folks can come and discover that connection that they've had for 1000's of years and assist that.
Cade: It is one factor to see Devils Tower via a cellphone or via a pc display screen. It is one other factor to see the wildlife and see the magnitude of the tower, to odor the ponderosa and the candy clover and the sagebrush, to stroll across the tower. Once you're right here, you are experiencing historical past, and the tower is historical past.
Pansy: One of the best ways I can describe is it is coming house. We got here house. Spiritually, we got here house.
