![]() They had been shooting arrows seeing how far they could fire them and roamed further and further from home. The sacred object of the Northern Cheyenne was a buffalo head which makes the story more significant for them.īear by Pexels – Pixabay – Pixabay License The Legend of Mato the BearĪnother legend tells how two young boys playing in the sagebrush on the great prairie. It was there practice in their camps to keep a sacred teepee dedicated to the Great Medicine where they kept the sacred objects of the people. The buffalo head had special significance to the Northern Cheyenne. According to legend the buffalo’s head could be still be seen on high by using a telescope and in those days the Devil’s Tower had never been climbed so there was no logical explanation as to how it got there. When he woke up the next morning he had returned to the base of the massive rock where he has first gone to sleep. ![]() So he spent the day praying and then went to sleep. He had no choice other than stay where was for another another day and night with no food or water. Looking all around her could for see for miles in all directions but could see no way down. In the morning when he woke up he discovered both he and the buffalo head by some unknown magic had been transported to the top of the rock. ![]() There is a Northern Cheyenne legend which tells how a man fell asleep at the bottom of the tower of rock next to the head of a buffalo head. As the bear is trying to climb the brothers are shooting arrows at its paws and eventually one arrow comes close to its mark scaring the bear off and the arrow continued to fly higher and higher and never came down. This they did and the bear attempted to climb the rock tower clawing at its face but each time it slips down leaving its claw marks. The brothers tell their sisters to lead it to Devil’s Tower and trick it into thinking they had climbed up it to escape. The girls tell their brothers that the bear can only be killed by an arrow shot through the underside of its paw. Two sisters manage to escape and make it back to their village but the bear has followed them there. In a Cheyenne version of the legend a group of girls are chased by giant bears and most of them are killed. Eventually, tired and frustrated he sauntered off to look for an easier meal and eventually rested at a place now called Bear Butte. He heard their prayer and caused a great tower of rock to rise out of the ground underneath the boys who were lifted up beyond the reach of Mato who left his claw marks the sides of the tower of rock trying to climb up to get at them. Although the boys ran fast Mato ran faster and as he was about to pounce the boys prayed to the Great Spirit for help. As soon as he saw the boys he became intent on catching and eating them and chased after them. Mato was a gigantic bear who had massive sharp claws on his front paws. One day two young Sioux boys roamed far from their village when they had the bad luck to come across Mato the bear. Highsmith, via Wikimedia Commons A Sioux Legend As the tower reached the sky the girls were transformed into a group of stars that are now called the Pleiades.ĭevil’s Tower, or Bear Lodge – Carol M. Their claws scratched the straight vertical marks that are seen to this day in the sides of the massive rock tower. The bears tried to climb up to get them and dug their claws in the rock to gain a grip but kept sliding down because it was too steep for them to climb. The Great Spirit heard their prayers and caused the rock to rise up from the ground towards the sky out of the reach of the bears. To escape the bears the girls climbed to the top of the summit and got down on their knees and prayed to the Great Spirit. This tells how a group of young girls were out playing when they came across several gigantic bears who on seeing then gave chase. The Kiowa and the Lakota people have a legend that tells how it originated. The Native Americans have several names for it including, Bear’s House, Bear’s Tipi, Bear’s Lodge and many others and features in many myths, legends and traditions. ![]() It was named Devil’s Tower in 1875 when an interpreter working for an expedition led by Colonel Richard Irving Dodge who mistakenly interpreted a Native American name for it as “Bad God’s Tower”. In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt declared it a national park. It is situated in Crook County in the Bear Lodge Mountains which is part of the Black Hills and not far from Sundance and Hulett in the north eastern part of Wyoming and rises to a height of 5,112 feet above sea level. That is because it was the place that people desperately tried to reach to rendezvous with the giant alien spacecraft. Highsmith, via Wikimedia CommonsDevil’s Tower in Wyoming has a familiar look about it for many people who watched the classic 1977 sci-fi movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. ![]()
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