Sacred Sites and Secular Reasoning: Managing the Majorville Medicine Wheel Area
Name
Mitchell Taylor Goodjohn
Type of Resource
text
Genre
Thesis
Abstract
--Description taken from "Sacred Sites and Secular Reasoning "--
This study investigated the human-induced factors affecting the Majorville Medicine Wheel area, and whether the Historical Resources Act (Alberta) provides adequate protection from these factors. The study also sought to incorporats aboriginal concepts of sacredness into the analysis of protection. Interviewing members of the Siksika Nation, local land-owners and lease-holders, government officials and representatives of industry, the study documented sacred significance for the medicine wheel and larger area on the part of the Siksika, and a lack of knowledge of such significance on the part of other interviewees. The government has involved neither aboriginal people, nor local land-owners or lease-holders in developing or implementing a management plan for the area. The management plan is based upon an informal arrangement with the oil and gas industry. While providing for site-specific protection, the management plan depends upon development-induced historical resources impact assessments for site detection.