Near Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park are trails that lead up to Black Elk Peak, the highest natural point in South Dakota at 7,244 feet. It’s also the highest summit east of the Rocky Mountains.
Black Elk Peak, formerly known as Harney Peak, holds deep significance for the Lakota as the home of the Thunder Beings. On its summit in the summer of 1872 the 9 year old Black Elk, the soon to be revered Oglala spiritual leader, experienced a near-death experience in which he was called to save not only his people but all of humanity. In his vision, he met with a council of the Six Grand-fathers representing the four cardinal directions as well as the earth and sky. They each offered him gifts that bestowed power, including a pipestone pipe. Through a series of subsequent events, Black Elk believed he gained not only power but also the ability to heal.
The mountain was formally renamed by the United States Board of Geographic Names on August 11, 2016, thereby ending the travesty of it being called after a US military figure infamous for leading an attack on a Sichanghuan (Brule) Lakota village on Blue Water Creek, Nebraska on September 3, 1885, killing more than 80 people and taking 70 women and children prisoner. Afterwards, soldiers and officers stole countless possessions from the massacre victims, some of which are now at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. The fight for their repatriation continues today.
An engineer under Harney’s command at Blue Water, Gouverneur Warren, named the highest peak in the Black Hills after the general in 1857. Harney was never to visit the mountain. However, everyone forgets that it already had a name prior to the approbation of its identity by the military and that before it was renamed Harney Peak, its name was Hinhankagha Paha (Owl Butte).
The story goes that long ago, Lakota villagers went into the Black Hills to gather slender pine trees to use as lodge poles for their tipis. At the time, it was said that an evil creature lived there. It had ugly yellow eyes and large basket-like ears, which made it resemble an owl. At night, it liked to snatch little children out of their tipis and carry them back to its lair on the top of Hinhankagha Paha, where it devoured its victims.
Once, over the course of four nights, the monster abducted four little girls and took them to the mountain, where it tortured them so cruelly that all the villagers could hear their cries of anguish echoing through the deep valleys. On the fifth day, a group of warriors climbed up the mountain to rescue the children, but the monster eluded them, and they could not find the children. When they returned, the villagers decided to leave the Black Hills before any more children were lost. As they offered a final prayer for help, a man appeared. Although he was dressed like a common warrior, the villagers knew he was none other than Fallen Star, a being from the Cloud People who had married a Lakota woman and was a supernatural protector of the Lakota people. He told them that he had slain the monster, and their children were now living with their relatives, the Cloud People.
Today, looking up at the night sky, you can see a cluster of small twinkling stars huddled closely together called Tayamni Pa. The Lakota say that these stars, also known as Pleiades, are the little girls who Fallen Star once rescued from the phantom creature of Hinhankagha Paha.