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The appended article is about the commodification, depersonalization and electronification of heritage interpretation.
Visitors to Mt. Rushmore should be offered guided groups tours led by
well-trained National Park Service professionals and perhaps, even better,
by Native American employees of the NPS. Instead, and offered only to those
customers willing and able to pay, impersonal heritage interpretation will be
provided through rented "audio wands."
At each of 29 stations, a prerecorded message will be delivered to those who have paid for this service...
The application of this technology does not constitute a fitting tribute to either justice or democracy. Borrowing this particular technology from the likes of Disneyland is a step in the wrong direction.
Scott
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September 23, 2006
Rushmore Chief Hopes Monument Becomes Place Of Healing
DIRK LAMMERS
MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL -- For many of the Lakota, the four
presidents of Mount Rushmore National Memorial who peer over this
"place of the black cedar" will always be trespassers.
"By the Lakota belief of them coming out of the Black Hills and
particularly Wind Cave, this is their territory," said Gerard Baker,
who became the national landmark's first American Indian superintendent
in 2004.
Baker knows many Indians hold on to bad feelings about Mount Rushmore
and the Black Hills, and he's not expecting everyone to say, "We accept
this." But he hopes Mount Rushmore can become a place for learning and
healing for American Indians with Thursday's launch of a self-guided
audio tour in several languages -- including Lakota.
"Ca wokisuya ki le justice na democracy ki Americans Indians ki wicakco
na wiyuskinyan He Sapa el unpi kta," the Lakota language version
welcomes.
Translation: "This memorial to justice and democracy now invites
American Indians to celebrate and teach their culture here in the heart
of the He Sapa, place of the black cedar."
Baker, a member of North Dakota's Mandan and Hidatsa tribes, said he
hopes fellow Indians will talk about the memorial's history and share
stories of their culture.
"America is full of all kinds of stories, both extremely good and
extremely bad. And I think it's one of our responsibilities to give as
much of that as we possibly can -- not to make people feel guilty or
angry or anything else, but to understand the history of this place,"
he said.
Baker sees the Lakota language tour as a natural extension of what Ben Black Elk did in the 50s and 60s.
Black Elk in those days was a staple at Mount Rushmore, posing for
photos with tourists intrigued by his single-feather headdress and
stories of his Lakota people.
He wasn't part of the official tour, but Black Elk became known as the
"fifth face on the mountain" after he started showing up to share
Indian history and their perspective on the monument, said Baker.
"We Indians credit him a lot for doing what he did, especially not being sanctioned by the Park Service," he said.
Rushmore officials had kicked around the idea for a self-guided audio
tour for years, as their Presidential Tours led by a single ranger
often draw as many as 250 followers during the peak season. It was
obvious that people stuck near the back weren't hearing everything, and
families visiting at other times didn't get a tour at all, said Debbie
Ketel, publications manager for the Mount Rushmore Historical Society.
"We don't have ranger talks during the off-season. So this provides
interpretation for people that come in winter time," said Ketel, who
led development of the audio tour.
After seeing the technology in action at Alcatraz during a 2003 retreat
to San Francisco, staff and volunteers got to work on Rushmore's
version, called the Living Memorial.
For $5, visitors can rent an audio wand and embark on the 29-station walking tour in English, Spanish, German or Lakota.
The goal was to not only memorialize the four presidents on the
mountain and talk about creating the sculpture, but to widen the scope
of interpretation and education to include the natural and cultural
resources of the area, said Judy Olson, the monument's chief of
interpretation.
Olson said Rushmore visitors often ask about Indian views of the
monument and the Black Hills, and the audio tour gives rangers another
tool to share that side of the story.
"It's one story we had never really told, so I think people are
overwhelmingly positive about the whole thing," Olson said. "They're
excited to hear about these things. The tipi is one of the most popular
places at Mount Rushmore right now. There's always people around it."
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