WPPD 2011 SACRED SITES

Bdote will be the host site of World Peace and Prayer Day 2011 with activities throughout the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Minnesota area.  Please refer to the calendar for locations of specific events.

SACRED SITES

Meaning of Bdote

  

The meeting of the Mississippi River and Minnesota River is called Bdote Minnesota or Mdote (pronounced Bdoh-tay) in the Dakota language.  After the United States government created Fort Snelling in the 1800's on the bluff overlooking this river confluence, Europeans began to pour into the region.  Settlements soon became cities as new permanent structures began to dot the landscape and new names were given to the homeland of these First Nations.  Current maps acknowledge the name of the area with a French mispronunciation of the name Bdote (Mendota, Mendota Heights, Mendota Bridge).   This fractured region is full of new invisible land ownership lines with the name Fort Snelling used pervasively.  Many historic buildings are falling into ruins and a unified plan for how to best acknowledge this region's collective past seems to have eluded those who currently live in this region. 

Bdote has always been and remains a place of importance in the Dakota belief system, central to Dakota culture.  It is the cultural equivalent of the Garden of Eden.  This is also a place where many important events in the past 200 years of Dakota written and oral history have occurred. This is the "Gathering Place" where leaders of multiple tribes would negotiate and make critical decisions. Likewise this site was used for meetings between indigenous leaders and United States government officials and was used for signing of treaties.

Whether intentional or not, Fort Snelling, the nearby Indian agency, and other manifestations of this reservation were built where the Dakota believe some of the most powerful spirits are said to reside. In this setting Dakota people carried on ceremonies crucial to their existence as a people.  It is appropriate that all nations are invited to "The Gathering Place" at the Center to pray together and to discuss topics that are crucial to the existence of all people.

"The Gathering Place" (Oheyawahi / Pilot Knob)

Renamed in 2009 by Chris Leith to ( Wotakuye Paha)" The hill of all the relatives"

Morgans Mound (Taku Wakan Ti-pi)

Coldwater Springs (Mini Wakan)

Fountain Cave (In-yan Ti-pi / The Stone House)

Carvers Cave (Wakan Ti-pi)

Red Rock (In-yan Sha, pronounced Ee-yah Sha)

Seth Eastman's 1846 painting of Pilot Knob ("The Gathering Place" Oheyawahi) looking southeast from below Fort Snelling.    

Source: Minnesota Historical Society.

A poem for peace was sent to WPPD 

from Isaac James Bishara (Maori)

Neither Only Amen

Neither past or future

Question answer

Only enlighenment

Neither for or against

True false

Only compassion

Neither black or white

Inferior superior

Only respect

Neither You or I

Right wrong

Only understanding 

Neither God or country

"I"-dentity "We"-dentity

Only acceptance

Neither love or hate

Vice virtue

Only peace

Amen

Isaac James Bishara

I am a Maori who has had the pleasure of meeting with our

Ainu family and wish to support them through poetry.