The Kiowa Return to Tso ai, a Sacred Place With a Meaning Far Removed From Its Role in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’

Kiowa tribal members revisit their ancestral homelands to honor their creation story during the anniversary of the United States’ first national monument.

As a child, I was told an intriguing story about how seven young Kiowa sisters were chased by a giant bear and climbed onto a forbidden rock. As the girls stood on the forbidden rock, it began to rise into the heavens, and the giant bear began clawing at the sides, putting claw marks into the rock as it ascended higher and higher into the sky. Eventually the bear fell back down to earth, but the rock with the girls kept on rising into the heavens until the sisters transformed into the Big Dipper. I have often looked into the clear night sky at the Big Dipper and thought of this beautiful story passed down from my ancestors.

Later in life, I learned that giant rock is a national landmark that rises 1,200 feet above the surrounding grassy plains and hills above the Belle Fourche River in northeastern Wyoming, near the South Dakota border. The great rock in the Kiowa story is now popularly known as the Devils Tower National Monument. In 1906, President Teddy Roosevelt established this geological formation as the United States’ first national monument.

On September 24, 2025, director of the Kiowa Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) Amanda Hill organized tribal members to participate in the opening ceremony of the Devils Tower National Monument’s 120th anniversary. To honor the creation story and the seven sisters of the big dipper, Ms. Hill selected six Kiowa women to accompany her to perform traditional scalp and victory dances. She also consulted Kiowa elder Leonard Cozad, Jr., to accompany her as a singer and storyteller. Mr. Cozad was not able to make the trip, so he recommended Micah Robedeaux to attend to sing for the Kiowa women dancers at the base of their sacred Tso ai (Big Rock). With sponsorship from the Devils Tower Natural History Association and the Kiowa Education Department, the Seven Sisters Celebration was coordinated as a symbolic tribal return to ancestral lands.

“Collaborations such as this provide resources necessary for sustainable tribal engagement within our ancestral lands. We honored our creation story with a dance exhibition. In doing so, our Kiowa language and songs echoed through the pine trees after generations of absence. As a result, lasting relationships were built between tribal members and our cultural landscape. Many of our tribal participants have never been to Tso ai, but now they know this place. Through their participation, their children will also know this place and will continue to uphold respect for our cultural connection to it. In this way we can encourage not only historic preservation of the site, but cultural preservation for our tribe as well.” ~ Kiowa Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Amanda Hill

Over a dozen tribes have held ceremonies near this great pillar, and have similar stories of a big bear, the rock and its connection to the big dipper. The Lakota refer to Devils Tower as Matȟó Thípila (pronounced mah-TOH tee-pee-la), or the Bears Lodge. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Shoshone and Arikara also have words in their languages for the tower. For the Kiowa, the area around Tso ai which is now Wyoming and South Dakota, is where the tribe once lived and thrived, before they were driven south by a combined alliance of Lakota and Cheyenne. The monument and adjacent area have also been an integral focal point of movies, most notably the 1977 classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In The Revenant (2015) Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, who after being mauled by a bear tries to make his way to Ft. Kiowa, located near the present-day Chamberlain, South Dakota.

The month of June is particularly significant for Native tribes of the plains as it is a time for conducting important ceremonies. The monument closes to rock climbing in June in reverence to the tribes who have ancestral ties to the monument, as they return to worship, fast and conduct ceremonies. When they revisit their sacred land, they conduct vision quests, ceremonial sweats and sun dances. If you visit the monument, you will often see cloth bundles of different colors hanging from trees at the base of the monument. Individual tribal members leave these prayer offerings, which must remain undisturbed, hanging from the tree branches. The Kiowa who came to the commemoration also left prayers at this important site related to their creation.

When asked about their return visit, Hill stated, “I am extremely proud of our tribal participation in the Devils Tower National Monument 120th Anniversary opening celebration. The National Park Service and the Devils Tower Natural History Association were more than welcoming, and our tribal representatives were well received.”

Dennis Zotigh | Read More

Dennis W. Zotigh (Kiowa/Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo/Isanti Dakota Indian) is a member of the Kiowa Gourd Clan and San Juan Pueblo Winter Clan and a descendant of Sitting Bear and No Retreat, both principal war chiefs of the Kiowas. Dennis works as a writer and cultural specialist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.