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Frank Morris/ KCUR
LAWRENCE, Kansas — The large crimson boulder standing bolt upright in a downtown park does not belong right here.
And after virtually a century, the Kaw tribe is reclaiming the rock that, for era after era, its individuals held as a sacred altar.
That 20-plus ton quartzite boulder is now sure for tribal land with the hope that it might probably strengthen the frayed bond between the Kaw, or Kanza, individuals and the state that took their land and their sacred stone — even their identify.
“There’s a bit of little bit of a melancholy feeling that I’ve once I see it,” mentioned James Pepper Henry, vice chairman of the Kaw Nation. “It is a reminder to us as Kaw individuals of what has been taken from us.”
The saga of the stone has come to symbolize the tough historical past of what is now often known as Kansas. In some methods it symbolizes what native tribes see as invasion and genocide.
No atypical rock
When the titanic drive of a glacier met billion-and-half-year-old quartzite bedrock within the northern plains, the rock broke, it budged, but it surely but it surely didn’t crumble. The glacier bulldozed south to what’s now Kansas about 700,000 years in the past.
“Much less resistant rocks have been simply floor to mud,” mentioned Andreas Möller, an affiliate professor of geology on the College of Kansas as he stood by the rock. “It is a survivor. It is exhausting and resilient, and right here it’s.”
As we speak, it stands in a tiny park hemmed in on three sides by busy streets and the Kansas, or Kaw, River on the fourth.
It is the identical place the place white Lawrence boosters propped it up in 1929. They plucked it from the riverbank about 25 miles upstream, introduced in on a rail automobile and bolted a plaque to the rock honoring town’s abolitionist founders — who additionally have been the individuals who have been in a position to settle within the space solely by pushing out the native Kaw.
This rock is sacred to Kaw individuals like Pepper Henry. He mentioned his uncle first launched him to the rock the tribe calls Íⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe virtually three many years in the past, and he vividly remembers his first have a look at it.
“I bought goosebumps as a result of, simply the dimensions of it. However I knew how essential it was to our individuals,” he mentioned. “I may really feel the presence of it. And this rock, it had a protracted journey from the place it got here from. It isn’t from these elements.”
Pepper Henry lives in Oklahoma. His Kaw ancestors roamed a lot of the land now referred to as Kansas looking buffalo for hundreds of years. However federal troops compelled them into smaller and smaller reservations after which dislodged the tribe completely, pushing it south to Oklahoma within the 1870s.
“Most individuals in Kansas do not know that the state is known as after a gaggle of individuals native American tribe, the Kanza,” Pepper Henry mentioned. “We have been just about erased from Kansas, and we’re invisible to most individuals right here.”
A number of years in the past, a tribal chief and a few activists in Lawrence started pushing to return the rock to the Kaw Nation. Jay Johnson, who teaches geography and directs the Middle for Indigenous Analysis and Science at KU, mentioned the Lawrence boosters who hauled the rock into city knew they have been taking one thing vital to the Kanza individuals.
“They took it they usually reappropriated it,” he mentioned. “And now the decedents and communities leaders have mentioned, ‘ what? We must always give this again and we should always apologize.’ “
The town gave it again final yr, together with an official apology for taking it within the first place. However Íⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe weighs at the very least 23 tons, perhaps nearer to 30. Shifting will probably be exhausting.
However Johnson mentioned the timing is nice. A nationwide dialogue over the significance of historic symbols and monuments fueled by the racial reckoning within the wake of George Floyd’s homicide is energizing the hassle to return the rock.
“We began to see this nationwide and worldwide motion round monuments and rethinking monuments taking place,” Johnson mentioned.
The Mellon Basis is offering $5 million to maneuver Íⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe. The query is the place.
Allegawaho Park
Lately, a number of Kaw leaders took a stroll round property the tribe owns simply southeast of Council Grove, Kansas, on the lookout for a spot for the stone.
“We’re within the coronary heart of the Flint Hills. And that is close to the location of our final villages in Kansas,” mentioned Pauline Sharp, a tribal member.
She was standing in Allegawaho Park, the location of the tribe’s final reservation in Kansas, land the tribe bought about 20 years in the past. An almost 100-year-old native limestone obelisk on the subsequent hill stands as a tribute to an unknown Kanza warrior. The tribe has constructed a dance pavilion and put in a few informational concrete slabs. Now it is on the lookout for the appropriate spot for a religious treasure — Íⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe.
Sharp mentioned untold generations of Kaw and different native peoples sought out Íⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe.
“It marked the placement of a spirit camp or entry to, , different dimensions,” she mentioned. “It was like a church.”
The tribe is making an attempt to resolve whether or not to set it up in a subject that is straightforward to get to, or on high of a hill with sweeping, majestic views. The positioning choice work is bittersweet for Pepper Henry, as a result of this bucolic spot was the final toehold for his tribe in Kansas, and the place it almost vanished.
“Quite a lot of our clans have been worn out, largely from cholera and diphtheria — and smallpox actually took a toll — but additionally hunger,” mentioned Pepper Henry, standing on the financial institution of a creek that runs via the property.
He says the Kaw Nation dwindled to solely about 160 individuals. It is since bounced again to greater than 3,700. And Pepper Henry mentioned inserting the tribe’s sacred rock in a tribal setting could assist strengthen the connection between the Kanza individuals and the state of Kansas.
“We’re nonetheless right here,” he mentioned. “We nonetheless exist. We’re not extinct.”
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