Sacred Minnesota
Bdote is Dakota Sacred Landscape
3/10/2021 | 2mVideo has Closed Captions
A sacred landscape called Bdote connects contemporary Dakota people to Grandmother Earth.
The Twin Cities area—and all of southern Minnesota—is Dakota homeland. A series of sites along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers form a sacred landscape the Dakota call Bdote. The Bdote sacred landscape connects contemporary Dakota people to Grandmother Earth. These sacred places are sites of both genesis and genocide in the past, and erasure in the present. Produced with Carleton College.
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Sacred Minnesota is a local public television program presented by TPT
Sacred Minnesota
Bdote is Dakota Sacred Landscape
3/10/2021 | 2mVideo has Closed Captions
The Twin Cities area—and all of southern Minnesota—is Dakota homeland. A series of sites along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers form a sacred landscape the Dakota call Bdote. The Bdote sacred landscape connects contemporary Dakota people to Grandmother Earth. These sacred places are sites of both genesis and genocide in the past, and erasure in the present. Produced with Carleton College.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(bright music) - Where two rivers come together is a confluence and in Dakota, we call that a Bdote.
There are many sacred places within this larger Bdote sacred landscape.
This Bdote is particularly important to us because it's the site of our creation.
Many people call this, the center of our existence as Dakota people.
It is the connection of our histories both between genesis and our genocide that really sort of tie together the importance of this place as a sacred place.
- So we're at a place called Coldwater Springs.
When we're talking about erasure from history, this is a prime example.
Back in 2009, we have elders come to us and they asked us to protect this site.
Ultimately, the Park Service rejected the oral histories that were collected by elders who are no longer with us today.
It will stir emotions inside of you but it will also keep a fire burnt to continue that fight that they started many years ago.
- This place, Oheyawahe, is both a site of ceremony, as well as aerial.
There's no escaping that this is a site of colonization.
(car revving) This is not a pure and pristine place but it doesn't have to be.
The power is still here.
(gentle music) - People have been coming to these places and various other sacred sites in the Twin Cities and I feel like a sense of power to be able to walk these same places that your ancestors did.
- This is Dakota homeland.
And so we have a responsibility as contemporary Natives to protect these sites.
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Sacred Minnesota is a local public television program presented by TPT