It happened because they were living in prophecy, the sort the old women liked to discuss round the kitchen table while she, and the other young, pretended not to hear.One was of Zuzeca Sapa, a black snake that would destroy the world unless her people stood up to defeat it.Back then the snake was taken to be the new Interstate highway, surfaced with black tar.Now it was clearly the pipeline, 1,170 miles long and costing $3.8bn, intended to carry black oil from the North Dakota shale-oil fields to Illinois.On the way it threatened 380 archaeological sites; 26 were in the 40-mile stretch round the meeting of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers,where roots had first grown out of her feet.This was her father’s land. As a child she had noted every feature which later, as historian of the Standing Rock Sioux, it became her job to catalogue and preserve.The low rolling hills carried the remains of Arikara villages, with effigies arranged in stones and prayers laid for years on the ground.On the peak above her camp her father was buried, along with one of her sons.At the confluence of the rivers was a whirlpool that carved the sand into great spheres strewn along the banks, the sacred stones.
这样的情况再次上演，是因为他们活在预言里，那种年迈女族人喜欢围在餐桌旁谈论的、拉多娜和其他年轻人假装不感兴趣的预言。其中一则预言是关于祖泽卡蛇妖（Zuzeca Sapa）的，这是一条足以毁灭世界的黑蛇，除非她的族人挺身而出毁灭它。当时，这条蛇被公认为铺着黑沥青的新州际公路。现在显然指的是这条长达1170英里、耗资38亿美元的输油管道，这条管道将北达科他州页岩油田的黑色原油输送到伊利诺伊州。这条输油管道沿途威胁到380处考古遗址，其中有26处位于密苏里河（Missouri）和坎农博尔河（Cannonball）交汇处方圆40英里的地方，而拉多娜就是在这里出生、在土地的滋养下长大的。这是她父亲的土地。孩提时代，她就注意到了那里的每一处特征，后来，作为立岩苏族（Standing Rock Sioux）历史学家，她的任务就是整理和保存这些特征。低矮起伏的山丘承载着阿里卡拉（Arikara）村落的遗迹，以及悠久的被刻意排列过的石头雕像，还有长年累月祈祷仪式的祷文。在她营地上方的山峰上，葬着她的父亲和她的一个儿子。在河流的交汇处有一处漩涡，漩涡把砂砾雕刻成散落在河岸的巨石圆球，那就是圣石。
