Tag: Medicine Bluffs

I guess I always thought that at least the Medicine Bluffs would be safe from development. In fact, I just told someone today that it probably would be, since it is on an Army Base.

Source

A federal judge has blocked the U.S. Army from starting a construction project at Fort Sill in Oklahoma out of concern for the religious rights of the Comanche Nation.

The tribe says it wasn’t consulted about the development of a training service center near the foot of Medicine Bluffs, a sacred site at Fort Sill. Work was scheduled to begin on Monday until Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti issued a temporary restraining order.

“The court finds that, given the nature of the interests which plaintiffs in this case seek to protect, irreparable harm will result if the construction project commences,” DeGiusti wrote in the five-page order.

I was wrong.

The Medicine Bluffs are very sacred to me personally, and I want to share the feeling of awe, mystery, and power that I get whenever I have been there with very few words, letting the Medicine Bluffs and its history speak for itself.

This unique landmark at the eastern end of the Wichita Mountains was noted, described, and explored by all early expeditions and was held in deep reverence by the Indian tribes of this area from time immemorial . The four contiguous bluffs form a picturesque crescent a mile in length on the south side of Medicine Bluff Creek, a tributary of Cache Creek and Red River; it is evidently the result of a ancient cataclysm in which half of a rock dome was raised along a crack or fault.

Crossposted at Native American Netroots