'Those are our Eiffel Towers, our pyramids': Why Standing Rock is about much more than oil

Standing Rock is cast as an environmental protest, but the Native American Water Protectors are part of a religious tradition that predates Christianity

On May 15, the Dakota Access Pipeline is scheduled to start delivering oil. The indigenous community of Standing Rock, North Dakota, has protested the pipeline for two years since its re-routing. Media coverage has largely portrayed the protest as an environmental movement and discussion of indigenous religion is rare. However, while environmental protection is a central and connected issue, discussions of Standing Rock that do not include an understanding of Native American religious traditions are missing important context.

Over 5,000 years ago, the inhabitants of a village along the Green River, Kentucky, practiced the Cult of the River Keepers. Skeletons show evidence of auditory exostoses, a growth of cartilaginous tissue on ear bones that is found in humans who are repeatedly exposed to cold water - suggesting they frequently performed religious ceremonies in the river. Today, Native American cultures in the midwest and south regard rivers are sacred entities, known as the Long Man or Long Snake, and continue to perform religious ceremonies in them. In the Missouri River, indigenous Water Protectors have tried to prevent the Dakota Access Pipeline from passing through a sacred landscape. Understood in its religious context, the Standing Rock Sioux are not anti-industry protestors, but practitioners of religious elements that may predate Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by centuries.