Controversy over the Designation of Places as Sacred. Religion and the Cultural Landscape

When places that are sacred to one religion are not treated as sacred by others, conflict often arises. The Black Hills in western South Dakota is a case in point. As shown in Figure 5-11, the Black Hills range is 125 miles long and 60 miles wide, with the loftiest peaks towering some three to four thousand feet above the nearby flatlands. It has long been regarded as a sacred place by the Dakota Sioux.

Figure 5-11 The Black Hills of South Dakota. The Black Hills rise abruptly from the level plains of western South Dakota. The isolated and majestic range has long been considered sacred territory by the Sioux, who have objected strenuously to mining efforts in the area

For more than a century, the Sioux have objected to mineral exploration in the Black Hills. In 1868 the U.S. government confirmed Sioux title to the region, but the treaty was routinely violated by American prospectors even before the confirmed discovery of gold in 1874. After gold was discovered, thousands of miners swarmed into the region. Submitting to government pressure, the Sioux eventually agreed to sell the land to the United States. In return, the federal government paid the Sioux over $50 million between 1877 and 1953. In 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court awarded the Sioux nation an additional SI 17 million in compensation.

Despite these awards, many Sioux remain resentful. For these Sioux, the dispute over mining rights in the Black Hills is not financial. Rather, the Sioux object to the fact that the U.S. government permitted, and indeed encouraged, the desecration of sacred territory.

Religion and the Cultural Landscape. Structures designed for various religious purposes are an important aspect of built environments throughout the world. Some religious structures are built to house congregations. Christians, Jews, and Muslims build houses of worship at which congregations assemble for religious services on a regular basis.

The house of worship may be the largest and most dominant building on the local cultural landscape, around which towns have been laid out. In much of Latin America, communities are organized around the local Roman Catholic church. The church stands at the center of the town and dominates the local cultural landscape. Other religious structures serve to house icons and other religious objects. Many Buddhist shrines house statues of Buddha and other religious images.

The relationships between religion, built environment, and the cultural landscape are particularly clear within the Mormon cultural region of the western United States. The Mormon denomination of Christianity was founded in upstate New York by Joseph Smith in the 1830s. Mormonism grew rapidly, but its followers were persecuted. After Smith was killed by an angry mob at Nauvoo. Illinois, his followers decided to move westward away from settled areas to avoid further persecution.

After an arduous westward migration, their leader, Brigham Young, chose to settle the region surrounding the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah. From the Salt Lake City area, waves of Mormon settlers moved north into Idaho and south into southern Utah, Nevada, and Arizona (Figures 5-6 and 5-8). Today, nearly 80 percent of Utah's population is Mormon, as is nearly half of the population of the Snake River valley of southern Idaho.

Figure 5-6 Christianity. Several different denominations of Christianity are locally dominant in the United States. Baptists are dominant in much of the Southeast, Mormons in Utah and neighboring states, and Lutherans in the Upper Midwest

Figure 5-8 The Trek of the Mormons. The first prophet of the Mormon church. Joseph Smith, lived in upstate New York. Successive persecutions led the Mormons to move to Missouri, Illinois, and eventually to Utah. Today, the Mormon culture region extends throughout much of Utah and parts of several nearby states

The valley of the Great Salt Lake is arid, and Mormon pioneers soon realized that they would have to grapple with the problem of irrigation. Many Mormon settlements were founded near dependable sources of water. As the Mormons began to settle the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Young specified several principles that were to underlie the construction of cities and towns. Isolation and self-sufficiency in community building would stabilize and protect the Mormon community.

Young instructed Mormon farmers to live in towns and travel to their fields each day to work. The church, the school, and other public buildings were located at the center of town, to be surrounded by residences and irrigated fields at the edge of the community (Figure 5-12).

Figure 5-12 Mormon Culture Region. Like many other religions, the Mormon culture may be identified by their place of worship. The church and other public buildings, are located in the center of the community, with residences (shown is the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City) developing around it

Streets were laid out in accordance with the cardinal directions. They were built sufficiently wide for a team of horses to turn around without difficulty. Irrigation ditches and canals that provide water for nearby farms often parallel the streets.