Bdóte


Bdóte is a significant Dakota sacred landscape where the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers meet, encompassing Pike Island, Fort Snelling, Coldwater Spring, Indian Mounds Park, and surrounding areas in present-day Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. In Dakota geographic memory, it is a single contiguous area not delineated by any contemporary areas' borders. According to Dakota oral tradition, it is the site of creation; the interconnectedness between the rivers, earth, and sky are important to the Dakota worldview and the site maintains its significance to the Dakota people.
It is also an important location in the history of European colonization of the region, including the 1805 Treaty of St. Peters with the Dakota people and the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters with the Ojibwe. After the Dakota War of 1862, it was the location of the concentration camp of the Dakota people before they were forcibly exiled from Minnesota. The cities of Mendota and Mendota Heights, Minnesota, which are part of Bdote, take their names from the Dakota name for the region.
In recent years, a movement to recognize and protect Bdote as a sacred place has been growing.

Etymology

In the Dakota language, bdote can refer to any place where two bodies of water converge and can be translated as the "mouth" of a body of water. A deprecated spelling is mdote.

Sacred significance to the Dakota people

Cosmology

Numerous creation stories within the Dakota communities define their relationships with the land and the stars above, including the sacred sites in Bdote. Many Dakota people identify as part of the Wicahpi Oyate, having spiritually originated from the stars and come into being on the land. In one version, the Big Dipper represents the seven bands of the Dakota and Lakota, collectively known as the Oceti Sakowin. According to another, told by Gwen Westerman, the Dakota came from Orion's Belt and through the Creator, they walked Caŋku Wanagi, the "spirit road", and arrived at Bdote, later spreading out to establish the sacred sites in the surrounding areas.
At Bdote, two bluffs called Caṡḳe Taŋka and Caṡḳe Cistiŋna opened up the earth. The Creator used mud between the bluffs to form the first Dakota man and woman. The earth is called Ina for "mother" because it is where Dakota people came from. Ṡuŋġi further explains, "In our Creation myth we the Dakota, the Seven Fires of the Dakota, came from the belt of Orion—the seven planets of the belt of Orion, the seven stars—and arrived at the convolution of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, and so in some respects it is our Eden, and the land around there is sacred as well".
According to astronomer Jim Rock, Bdote refers to the "Dakota Makoce Cokaya Kin". An ancient and important relationship between the land and stars is known by the Dakota term Kapemni, which means "as it is above, it is below". The Mississippi River is reflected above as the Milky Way, the Spirit Road, that life travels to this world and returns to. Burial mounds, including Oheyawahi-Pilot Knob and Indian Mounds Park within Bdote, are built along the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River so that the ancestors are in a place of honor.
A newborn baby's first cry is referred to as bdote, which compares the importance of a person's first breath of air with the necessity of water for life.

Sacred sites

There are numerous sites sacred to the Dakota people within Bdote. The specific sites within Bdote are part of what gives the region its significance in Dakota tradition. Lakota Chief Arvol Looking Horse noted during a pipe ceremony on Pilot Knob Preservation that these sacred sites are how Dakota people connect spiritually to the wider landscape. Prairie Island Dakota spiritual leader Chris Leith has said that Bdote's many sacred sites make it a "vortex" in the landscape.
  • Mnísota Wakpá
  • Oȟéyawahe
  • Wíta Tháŋka
  • Mniówe Sní
  • Owámniyomni

    Ȟaȟáwakpa (Mississippi River)

Ȟaȟáwakpa was named after the many waterfalls that once cascaded over the bluffs, and the only natural waterfall on the Mississippi River, known in Dakota as Owámniyomni. Urban development of Minneapolis and Saint Paul led to the destruction of many of the falls or the removal of their water source. The river is reflected above in Dakota thought as the Milky Way, known in Dakota star knowledge as the Spirit Road on which people's spirits travel to and from earth during their birth and death. According to Dakota oral tradition, burial mounds were built along the bluffs to be close to the river of waterfalls and the spirit road. The river is also called Wakpá Tháŋka, the Great River, or less commonly Thaŋčháŋ Wakpa.

Owámniyomni (St. Anthony Falls)

Owámniyomni is the Dakota name of St. Anthony Falls. As the only natural portage on the Mississippi River in the area, it was considered neutral territory and a practical meeting place for numerous tribes. Above the sacred falls is Wita Waste, an annual maple-sugar camp for the Dakota. Below the falls was an island known as Wita Wanagi, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers destroyed in 1960 to dredge the site for boat passage. Wita Wanagi was a birthing place for Dakota women and also home to the spirit of Anpetu Sapa Win, whose death song could still be heard on the island.

Wakháŋ Thípi

Wakháŋ Thípi is a spring-fed cave, sealed with an iron gate, within the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary. Dakota people believe it is home to an Uŋktehi that protects the water. Dakota midwife Autumn Cavendar-Wilson describes the cave as a historical safe location for generations of Dakota women to give birth that represents a womb on earth. The cave corresponds with Orion's Belt as a reflection on earth. There were petroglyphs of snakes that depicted the Dakota people's cosmic origin beliefs at Bdote and Wakháŋ Thípi. A railroad expansion project in the late 1800s destroyed the atrium of the cave that contained the petroglyphs.

Burial sites

, Oheyawahi-Pilot Knob Preservation Site, Mound Springs Park, and Grey Cloud Island are considered burial sites by Dakota people and parks by governing municipalities.

Geography

Bdote refers to both a wider geographical area and the northeastern tip of Pike Island specifically, which is considered the exact area where the Mississippi River and Minnesota Rivers meet.
The exact area of wider Bdote varies by tradition, but generally encompasses Pike Island, Fort Snelling, Saint Anthony Falls, Coldwater Spring, and a stretch of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. It has no English name and is popularly known by its Dakota name, Bdóte. Its role in Dakota tradition is sometimes described in English as "the center", a site that is the start of all life.
The rivers and island are south of Minneapolis and St. Paul and north of Mendota, Minnesota. Most of the Bdote area is administered by the state as part of the Fort Snelling state park and historic site, or Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, while Crosby Farm Park and Hidden Falls are St. Paul city parks. Coldwater Spring, along with Saint Anthony Falls, are under federal jurisdiction as part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area.

History

Dakota villages and settlements

Because the Dakota observed a seasonal migration pattern, a number of villages and settlements were noted in the Bdote area. In the location-based Dakota history book Mni Sota Makoce, Westerman and White posit that burial mounds correlate with village locations, because some mound research has revealed relationships between Dakota seasonal settlement and mound activity. This relationship is already noted in Dakota oral traditions.
Villages settled in a similar area each year, though the exact location varied. For example, in 1805 Kaposia was noted at the site of present-day Mounds Park in St. Paul, and around the time of the Treaty of 1837, Kaposia moved from the east bank of the Mississippi River to the west bank, and in 1853 Kaposia moved again due to provisions in the Treaty of Mendota. Sites in Bdote were more likely summer villages, where spring flooding made travel by canoe more convenient.
  • Kaposia : Near Mounds Park and Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary
  • Black Dog village : Near the present-day site of Fort Snelling
  • Ḣeyate Otunwe: Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡṭa 's village on Bde Maka Ska, where Dakota experimented with Western-style sedentary agricultural practices. Cloud Man died in the Fort Snelling concentration camp at Wíta Tháŋka in the winter of 1862-1863.

    Treaty of St. Peters

At Bdote, Zebulon Pike met with the Dakota and signed the 1805 Treaty of St. Peters, also known as Pike's Purchase. Two of the seven Dakota leaders agreed to sell the land, eventually receiving only $2,000 when it was valued by Pike at $200,000, along with the agreement to build a fort at the location. In 1820, the Dakota granted ownership of where the two rivers meet on Bdote to Pelagie Ainse, the daughter of a French fur trader and a Dakota woman. She was married to Jean-Baptiste Faribault and was the mother of Alexander Faribault.

Fort Snelling concentration camp

While Bdote is the origin story of the Dakota people, it is also the site of their forced exile from Minnesota. The Fort Snelling Dakota concentration camp at Bdote was a temporary holding facility for Dakota women, children, and elders who surrendered to the U.S. military after the Dakota War of 1862. The camp was on the banks of the Minnesota River, near the fort. It was established in November 1862 and held about 1,700 Dakota people. The conditions in the camp were miserable, and between 130 and 300 Dakota people died from disease and malnutrition. Dakota leader Gabriel Renville wrote: "We were so crowded and confined that an epidemic broke out among us and children were dying day and night. Amid all this sickness and these great tribulations, it seemed doubtful at night whether a person would be alive in the morning".
In December 1862, the U.S. military built a wooden stockade around the camp. The stockade was about 12 feet high and enclosed an area of two or three acres. The Dakota people were forced to live inside the stockade and not allowed to leave. The camp was guarded by soldiers from the Sixth, Seventh, and Tenth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiments. The soldiers were responsible for controlling movement in and out of the camp.
Episcopalian Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple advocated for the imprisoned Dakota people, and Reverend John Poage Williamson, who lived among the Dakota his whole life, joined them in the ordeal and remained with them as they were exiled into South Dakota. The concentration camp at Fort Snelling closed in May 1863 and the Dakota people who survived the camp were then exiled from Minnesota to the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota.