Carved In Granite Etched in Stone
Once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Carved in Granite, Etched in Stone
When Gutzon Borglum and his crew carved the iconic faces into the Six Grandfathers,
They destroyed the sacred mountain Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe in the language of the Lakota named by medicine man, Nicholas Black Elk.
He had a vision, the six grandfathers represented the six sacred directions,
North, South, East, West, Above and Below.
They represented love and kindness, full years, and wisdom, like human grandfathers.
During the sculpting no attempt was made to clear the debris from the field at the base of the mountain.
By doing this Gutzon and his assistants inadvertently created a stunning visual metaphor for how many Americans understand the history of our country.
In Borglum’s mind the four presidents represented the first one hundred and fifty years of the Republic and their role in preserving and expanding that Republic.
Washington, the birth. Jefferson, the growth, Lincoln the preservation and Roosevelt, the development.
The minute the dynamite was set, he blasted into reality a representation of the myth surrounding what this country is and what its citizens think it has always been.
A benevolent nation where all men are created equal, a nation that fights for freedom and democracy the world over, a nation where if you work hard, you too can live the American dream.
By creating this mythology etched in stone, he enabled Americans to ignore the rubble of our real history.
The moraine of our national story is filled with the granite of genocide, slavery, rapacious capitalism, and imperial aggression that has made millions of people suffer and die.
The destruction is left at the foot of our mythos and we look past that to stare at the false construct that is ingrained in every American from childhood.
The faces on that mountain tell us a false story of benevolence and greatness when in reality the truth is much darker.
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The exact argument that European descendants have used for centuries excuse their own horrific crimes. Yes there were brutal attacks among indigenous tribes but it pales in comparison to the massive scale of genocide committed by European colonizers in Africa and the Americas. The wholesale slaughter of indigenous peoples that killed many millions of people and robbed them of their resources is in no way comparable to the intertribal warfare between tribes AND ignores the many peaceful tribes that were wiped out also . Yours is a racist, white supremacist view of history and it is an attempt to whitewash (pun intended) the massive scale of the atrocities committed by Europeans all over the world. So gtfoh with this settler/colonizer 🐂💩.
Also fact; the Pawnee because of their dwindling numbers , ceded much of their territory to the U.S. in return for promised protection just another of the many treaties broken by the colonizers