A Sabbath with the Spirits

Among the Natives of the region, it was a hot spot, a greatly famous landmark thought to be inhabited--well, haunted really--by odd, little spirits sufficiently abhorrent to make them wary enough to stay away. And that's why, when Lewis and Clark came up the wide Missouri one hot summer day, August 24, 1804, once they heard the story, they decided to hike up north a ways and investigate. They were somewhere in the vicinity of the mouth of the Vermilion River, somewhere around here, when the Omahas told them about little foot-tall demons. 

Here's how their Journal entry goes (in their one of a kind spelling):

"Capt Lewis and my Self Concluded to visit a High Hill Situated in an emence Plain three Leagues N. 20° W. from the mouth of White Stone river, this hill appear to be of a Conic form and by all the different Nations in this quater is Supposed to be a place of Deavels or that they are in human form with remarkable large heads and about 18 inches high; that they are very watchfull and ar armed with Sharp arrows with which they can kill at a great distance; they are said to kill all persons who are so hardy as to attemp to approach the hill; they state the tradition informs them than many indians have suffered by these little people and among others that three Mahas Souix Ottoes and other neibghouring nations believe this fable that no consideration is suffiecient to induce them to approach this hill."

Sunflowers had the run of the place on Sunday afternoon when we visited again, took the half-mile hike up to the top:

 

That's Spirit Mound, way in the background. We'd been up top before quite often and had never run into little demons, but the hike is worth the time once you get up top and realize that right there, not all that far from home, William Clark and Meriwether Lewis didn't even have to get out the glass to see something they'd never seen before, their first jaw-dropping view of a sea of bison.  

Spirit Mound, an odd little blemish on an otherwise featureless prairie, is not man-made, but a construction of Niobrara chalk, remnant sea shells--not a lie--of another time, an age when the entire region was the bed of a huge inland sea. 

It's a vigorous hike but not demanding. The afternoon was a bit warm with a good wind, but our little foray up Spirit Mound was more than sufficient to raise a sweat. While we were there, some real runner ran up and down the trail--twice! Left me panting just to watch.

I didn't jog a foot of it, but I dare say the trip is as good for the body as it is for the soul. 

It's a beautiful place, oddly undistinguished, little more than an weird prairie pimple--a mound, certainly no mountain and barely a hill; but it has a history that haunts a bit when you hike to the top.  Still takes your breath away.

Stops you cold with the immensity of the inescapable truth that this world around us, fashioned by a loving sculptor many moons ago, is as rich with story as it is abundant in awe. 

You can do worse on an almost perfect Sabbath afternoon, so this old couple ended with a selfie, our very first in 48 years. (Pardon my hand there on the left. We really don't know what we're doing.)