The Midwest Region of the National Park Service (NPS) contracted an ethnographic team at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA), University of Arizona (UofA), Tucson, to conduct a two-part study for Pipestone National Monument with Richard W. Stoffle and Maria N. Zedeño. Volume I contains a cultural affiliation/traditional association determination statement; Volume II, this document, is a discussion of ethnobotanical and cultural landscape data that was collected at Pipestone National Monument in June 2002 through interactions with tribal members of several Dakota and Lakota Sioux tribes. The ethnographic data, supplemented with publications, and archival and legislative documents, subsequently were entered in the NPS’s Ethnographic Resource Inventory (ERI), a national database of ethnographic resources for which the agency has management responsibility.

Both the Ethnobotany and the Cultural Affiliation studies were funded at the same time by the NPS. The purpose of each was to lay a foundation for future government-to-government consultations with tribes who are culturally affiliated with the land and resources of Pipestone National Monument. The Ethnobotany study was focused on those tribes believed by the park to be culturally affiliated with Pipestone. Those tribes were Lakota, Dakota, or Nakota (from Canada) in culture. The broader list of tribes who have the right to quarry at Pipestone were not consulted during these studies given that those rights derived from park establishment legislation language.

The Ethnobotany study led to a rather extensive discussion of the role of plants in a broader ceremonial landscapes. This discussion led to an understanding of Pipestone as a center of a range of widespread cultural landscapes each having little to do with plants. So the initial purpose of the Ethnobotany study was expanded at the request of the participating American Indian tribal representatives and the approval of the park staff. This complex evolution of the study is explained in two power point presentations that accompany the two technical reports in this Pipestone collection. One power point is focused on the role of plants at Pipestone. The other power point presentation discusses cultural landscapes and contains a table of findings from the cultural affiliation study. That table indicates that there are seven American Indian cultural (or ethnic) groups who are culturally affiliated with Pipestone (1) Mandan, (2) Ioway, (3) Oto, (4) Omaha, (5) Ponca, (6) Dakota, and (7) Lakota.

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