DLA’UPAC. (fl. c. 1800s). Walula. An early prophet in the Columbia Plateau region who lived near present-day Pasco, Washington. The prophet was believed to have lived before the later prophet smohalla, perhaps in the early 1800s.
Dla’upac was said to have been dead for five days and to have returned to life. Found singing, he told the people what he had learned in the spirit world. He prophesied the destruction of the world by fire or flood, as it had been in the past, and the return of the dead to life before the catastrophe.
In addition to foretelling the future, Dla’upac told people to prepare themselves for meeting Xwampipama, the creator.
BADGER-TWO MEDICINE. Blackfeet. This Blackfeet sacred site, which borders the Blackfeet reservation, is located in the Lewis and Clark National Forest in northwest Montana. The Blackfeet ceded the region to the federal government in an 1896 agreement but retained rights to religious use of the area.
For centuries, the Blackfeet have carried out practices in this sacred region that are vital to the Blackfeet culture and people. They have built sweat lodges near Badger Creek, conducted Sun Dances and other ceremonies, buried their dead, gathered tipi poles, collected medicinal herbs and roots and climbed the peaks to conduct fasts and to seek visions and communicate with the Creator.
The Blackfeet pikuni traditionalists association has been fighting since 1986 to keep the U.S. Forest Service from allowing oil and gas drilling in the 130,000 acre region. They have argued that oil and gas development will make sacred rites impossible, destroy the region’s spirituality and violate their First Amendment.
BALD AND GOLDEN EAGLES PROTECTION ACT OF 1940. (16 U.S.C. 668-668d). Under this federal act, the Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior issued regulations restricting the taking, possessing and transporting of bald and golden eagles or their parts.
These regulations continue to affect native people who consider the eagle sacred and use it, or its parts, for religious purposes. Arrests have been made, including those of Cheyennes and Arapahoes in the 1970s in Oklahoma.
